Personal Narrative: My Experience With Diabetes

The journey started February 3, 2014. I was getting on the school bus like any regular day when I received a text from my mom like usual. I expected a casual ‘how was school?’ or ‘Love you, hope you had a great day.’ But it was far from that. My little sister Kennedy had not been feeling well, a little under the weather. This was typical from our family since it seems someone always gets sick in the winter. You could tell she was weak, losing weight, and becoming increasingly thirsty, but no one expected what was to come. I looked down at my phone to read, “Kennedy has diabetes.” Once I read that text my heart dropped, I thought I was going to lose my baby sister. I cannot describe the amount of emotions I was feeling. I was feeling like I …show more content…
As I was learning more and more information about diabetes I began to understand. The pancreas had gone dead. Might as well take it out because it’s serving absolutely no purpose, right? The numbers kept adding up and words began slurring, so much information doctors were trying to jam into my head imagining I would understand it after a few tries. The math was the worst part about learning all of this. You have to give her insulin shots, which is what our pancreas typically provides us, but not in my sister’s case. She has to test your blood sugar and then give herself a shot based off how many carbs are in the food she is eating. Confusing, right? It was all starting to make sense. But then I realized she depended on me and my family to keep her alive. Diabetes puts her life in risk in many scenarios. If we give her the wrong amount of insulin she could crash, causing her blood sugar numbers to be unsafely low, which will make her unconscious. If we don’t give her enough insulin, her numbers could be too high causing her to go into a coma. It’s a constant struggle, which sadly will never