Well, to begin this long story: Fore score and 7 years ago...
...Just kidding. But in all seriousness, it all kind of started when I was in 4th grade. On Christmas Eve, I had to spend my entire day in a hospital, getting blood work done for a medical test to see if I had diabetes. I, being only 10 and traumatized by needles already, was in a living heck. I still remember that one moment that really scared me for life...The nurse already had the needle in my arm, and she couldn't get any blood out of the vein, so she wiggled the needle around roughly, trying to get some while it was still in my arm. Just the thought of it literally makes me sick in my stomach and my arm gets this small sharp pain and...Yeah...
Anyways, as soon as I was done at the hospital, my mom took me back home to our family to open our Christmas presents (yes, in my family, we open our presents on Christmas Eve, and we spend the next day cooking food for this huge dinner we have, and we also make dinner plates and take them to the nursing home in my town). Then, my life spun upside down with one phone call during that time. I can describe it vividly: I held my favorite and last present-my brand new guitar, of which I still have- in my arms, careful to avoid the bandages on my arms. My mom hung up the phone, looked at me with tears in her eyes, and said "Ariel, you are a diabetic."
I remember how I felt, but the feeling itself couldn't be described in words. It was like, a mixture of emotions. Confusion, anger, sadness, bewilderment, grief, anxiety, depression- all of these words, plus some I most likely have forgotten was exactly how I felt at that one moment. I broke down crying right on the spot, for my worst nightmare had come true.
You're probably thinking 'diabetes isn't that bad'. And in a further case in this story, you will be right. However, from a 10 year old's perspective, this meant that I wouldn't be able to eat sweets like other kids did, I would have to pri.ck myself with a needle four times a day (bearing in mind that I had been stuck with needles all over my arms that day plus I was terrified of them in the first place), I'd be missing school for doctor's appointments on a regular basis, I'd have to take medication that I didn't even know how to spell-let alone know what it did to me- all day, every day for the rest of my life.
Now, here we are, 5 years later, in present day. I'm 15- well; technically, I was 14, since I turned 15 after this situation...Anyways, let’s just say I was 14 for now. I still checked my blood sugar levels, but only twice a day now. Thanks to four-almost five- years without eating many sweets, my sweet tooth is kind of gone, and I worked out a majority of the days of the week after school or during my free time. My doctors said I lived a very healthy lifestyle. This is where the tables turn:
I weighed over 200 pounds at the time.
I didn't know what to do. I knew I ate healthy, and I was always moving, so why was I this big? The doctors merely said it was a result from my diabetes, and from a poor diet and not enough exercise, despite the healthy lifestyle I was on before. I followed a diet they gave me, and I worked out twice as much to get the weight to fall off, trying to make myself look skinny before my first day of high school. When we came back a few weeks before school began, my parents, just about every doctor that I had worked with, and I had a huge wake up call:
Within 6 months, I had managed to gain 90 pounds, even with the dieting and exercise I was doing before.
If I wasn't sure about how confused I was before, I knew how lost I was now: Very.
No one knew exactly what was wrong with me, leaving all the doctors I had met with completely puzzled. The feelings between them and I were mutual.
Then one fateful day, I met with one of the top children’s endocrinologists in Texas to talk about my problem with the constant weight gain. She ran down a list of symptoms, asking me whether I have had or have any of them before. After that evaluation plus a physical exam, she brought up the two words that changed my life forever:
