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As a type 1 diabetic my illness is not easily noticeable to the naked eye. Besides a small amount of tubing peeking out from my shirt, it’ basically invisible. I cannot say that this disease has caused me much sacrifice. I am not inhibited in any physical activity and am only forced to let it consume 30 minutes of my life a day. What diabetes has caused me is a realization that I will not live the same life as those who I am surrounded by. Everyone always says that you should be yourself, but how can you be yourself if you don’t understand who you are. I was diagnosed with this mysterious disease at the age of 4. I had a hard time coping with this autoimmune disease solely bc I had no idea how to control it. I had multiple incidents where I was unable to control myself because of the actions that increasing and decreasing blood sugars can do to your body. Eventually I started to get more comfortable with this disease in my body and so I began to share that I was different from others. But this task was especially difficult when I started elementary school. I did not want my new friends to know I had to go to the nurse 3 times a day, or for them to know I wasn’t allowed to drink the chocolate milk. As I progressed into middle school I had become more comfortable with this annoyance and no longer needed to see the nurse to do my diabetic due diligence. I was still afraid of telling people that I had diabetes just because it is a subject that is fairly new to many people and I did not enjoy the fact that it would bring me unwanted attention. Every now and then I would feel the urge to let people know just because my actions could be different if I were experiencing a fluctuation in blood sugar, but in the end I would just keep to myself. This cycle continued throughout middle school until I reached my Health 101 class my freshman year of high school. All of the students were paired up and given a disease to inform the class about. My disease to summarize to the class was of course, Hepatitis. That presentation on liver disease was not the prevailing point that made me realize I am just like everyone else, it was the presentation on Type 1 Diabetes. That day of presentations was just another boring hour of my life, except when the diabetes group presented I payed attention because I believed I would know more than the presenters and somehow feel a sense of gratification for knowing more than two people who had just been introduced to this common autoimmune disease. The presentation started with what Diabetes is, as a common google search would tell you, “In type 1 diabetes, the body does not produce insulin. The body breaks down the sugars and starches you eat into a simple sugar called glucose, which it uses for energy. Insulin is a hormone that the body needs to get glucose from the bloodstream into the cells of the body”. All of which I knew very well. The next slide on the other hand took me by surprise. “The average person with type 1 diabetes has a lifespan of 66 years, whereas the average healthy human has a lifespan of 77 years”. These formidable numbers on the screen have absolutely no value, but in that instance I was instantly struck with many emotions. The prevailing one was depression. Amongst the flurry of thoughts running through my head, I believed that I just needed to start living my life. I was no longer going to be afraid of telling people I had diabetes. Why did I even fear this in the first place? Although this took some getting used to I eventually became the “Diabetic” at the school. A lot of my friends coined the term “Diabetes” when referring to me. A couple years ago this would have bothered me, but this disease that is (theoretically) going to rob me of 11 years of my life doesn’t get to have a negative effect on the outlook of my life. I no longer expect any absurd consequences to come from me telling others that I have an illness that I had no control over. I appreciate who I am and who I have come to be . There is no need for me to ever feel like I should try to hide myself. I am not deserving of this mutant, but I do know that I am better than it.