Anything Can Happen

You don't notice how big something is until others talk about it. To me diabetes is my morning, afternoon and night. I don't think of it as a disability, a disease or a crutch. I know what happens when my sugars go low and when they go high and for the most part I am completely in control of my diabetes.

Yet, when you meet a new person and begin to describe your daily rituals and the work that you had to go through in order to understand your diabetes, or possibly your insulin pump - it begins to sink in that you actually are dealing with a big situation every day.

This year I decided to make it official at my college that I was a student living with diabetes. Reason being is so that my teachers can fully understand what I am doing and what diabetes involves. Of course they don't receive a full on presentation by the Diabetes Education Centre, but they do get a list of all the things that I may need in order to make the most of the classroom while managing my diabetes.

I am a 4.0 student and know that almost all of the services will not be a necessity to me and I addressed that to the counsellor very clearly that I don't want to use services for the purpose of 'because I can' because I know that I am fully capable of independently working alone with no services.

However, in some classes food and drink is prohibited - but with this paper I can go against that - much like leaving the classroom for emergency reasons. Small things like that that may effect me in class, but will not effect my final grade or how my professor views me as a student.

I highly recommend this for any diabetic that is going to a college/university. I know that sitting through the meeting will be difficult and hearing all of the services will be hard - but it doesn't mean you have to use them. No diabetic wants to think that having diabetes is a disability because it doesn't disable us from doing anything, but it's incredibly important for your professors to know that you are diabetic and that anything can happen.

Kayla