After completing a tiring day at college I decided to relax in the way that I usually find most rewarding – baking. I absolutely adore chocolate cake but today was feeling more like cookie day. Perhaps more like an apple cinnamon cookie day! Off I went. Whisking and mixing and beating. Before I knew it, I had at least three dozen golden cookies omitting the most aromatic fusion of apple and cinnamon swirl. Yum. I will admit that I taste tested a few to make sure they were not poisonous (“wink wink”). As I went to eat my fourth, or maybe it was my eighth, my father stopped me. “Come here Antonia, we have to have a talk” he said. I thus diverted from my original plan to taste test one more – to make sure for definite that the cookies could be safely consumed by fellow members of the household – and joined my father in the study room. It was from that very moment onwards that my life would change forever.
All the symptoms were there but my failure to recognise what they were made me shocked about the diagnosis. Of course, now, it is painstakingly obvious. Having had a hospital appointment a few hours earlier, I had expected nothing of it. Boy was I wrong! Imagine what may have happened if I had downed another cookie… My instant thought was that I should eaten it! Food freedom would be stripped from me and my possible last hurrah was now down the drain. “Type one diabetes” I recall my father saying. I did not know what to say.
Here I am, a week later, taking type one in my stride. No, I may not get to eat as many chocolatey goodies as I would like to. No, I may not be able to do sports whenever I fancy. No, diabetes is not a super power like flying or mind-reading but the truth is that I feel stronger than ever. It is already such a huge part of my existence so why not embrace it by sharing my stories with you? So I say, “Come at me diabetes! Whatchu got in store mah*?”
*mah – Chinese question word/ local slang I have picked up
Current glucose level upon publishing: 6.5mmol/L
Insulearning with Antonia 