The bunny shaped marshmallow candies known as Peeps helped save my life. After consuming them in handfuls one afternoon as a nine-year-old, the excessive urinating and drinking I had been experiencing the previous weeks returned with a vengeance. Realizing something to be amiss, my mother drove us to the nearest medical clinic. A nurse eventually pricked my finger to test my blood and revealed a glucose level above 700 mg/dl. After receiving my first insulin shot, she explained that a normal glucose reading should be between 80-120 mg/dl and that as a new Type 1 diabetic, I would need to make fundamental lifestyle changes. This disease is incurable, but ultimately manageable and can be controlled only through careful and continuous maintenance.
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Initially, I did not make the necessary dietary changes or engage in physical exercise often enough. Nor had I made a habit of injecting myself with insulin before consuming carbohydrates to prevent the nauseously unpleasant -and unhealthy- experience of hyperglycemia (high blood sugar). Due to this clumsy control, my blood sugar generally ran afoul and the corresponding fatigue hampered my academic and athletic ability. This, combined with a shyness and ill-conceived embarrassment of having diabetes at an early age, led to me not fully embracing needed lifestyle changes. These changes proved necessary for me to live a healthy and more assertive life, and learning to implement them bolstered my confidence when overcoming other challenges I faced while living remotely in Big Sky …show more content…
I am determined to make the most out of my time on earth, and after receiving that news from the healthcare clinic over a decade ago, I was forced to make a choice- it was a decision about who I would be moving forward. I have chosen to abandon feelings of trepidation and embarrassment and instead devoted myself to the pursuit of my greatest dreams. A career in law is one of those dreams, for I desire to learn how to impact policy formation and influence judicial decision making on matters pertaining to resource use, climate change, and energy consumption, and am excited to tackle a global issue that is so urgent and in need of a vigorous response. UCLA’s exceptional environmental law program, with its profound dedication to promoting law and policy solutions to climate change and other environmental problems, offers the best means, in my estimation, to make a career out of protecting something I hold dear. Tackling the most pressing environmental concerns is my goal, and UCLA Law provides the premier instruction on how to do so. Finally, keeping an open mind in my experience has been the key to improvement, and that I will always
Initially, I did not make the necessary dietary changes or engage in physical exercise often enough. Nor had I made a habit of injecting myself with insulin before consuming carbohydrates to prevent the nauseously unpleasant -and unhealthy- experience of hyperglycemia (high blood sugar). Due to this clumsy control, my blood sugar generally ran afoul and the corresponding fatigue hampered my academic and athletic ability. This, combined with a shyness and ill-conceived embarrassment of having diabetes at an early age, led to me not fully embracing needed lifestyle changes. These changes proved necessary for me to live a healthy and more assertive life, and learning to implement them bolstered my confidence when overcoming other challenges I faced while living remotely in Big Sky …show more content…
I am determined to make the most out of my time on earth, and after receiving that news from the healthcare clinic over a decade ago, I was forced to make a choice- it was a decision about who I would be moving forward. I have chosen to abandon feelings of trepidation and embarrassment and instead devoted myself to the pursuit of my greatest dreams. A career in law is one of those dreams, for I desire to learn how to impact policy formation and influence judicial decision making on matters pertaining to resource use, climate change, and energy consumption, and am excited to tackle a global issue that is so urgent and in need of a vigorous response. UCLA’s exceptional environmental law program, with its profound dedication to promoting law and policy solutions to climate change and other environmental problems, offers the best means, in my estimation, to make a career out of protecting something I hold dear. Tackling the most pressing environmental concerns is my goal, and UCLA Law provides the premier instruction on how to do so. Finally, keeping an open mind in my experience has been the key to improvement, and that I will always