I am Christel from Diabetes Strong in this video
I’ll be sharing my diabetes diagnosis story
so I’m actually often asked to share my diagnosis story and I kind of think it's because it's
probably one of those events that's kind of tied us together and most likely you also remember your
diagnosis story I think most of us do except if you're like super young when you got diagnosed
and then of course there's those of you who got misdiagnosed the first time around you probably
remember both your first as well as your second diagnosis I’ve told my diagnosis story whenever
I’ve been interviewed on podcasts if I’ve talked at camps or at diabetes events and even when I’m
at new diabetes but I always tend to I always tend to rush it a little bit that's on me nobody has
tried to rush me to wrap it up but today I’m going to tell you the full story so let's dive in I
was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in December of 1997 and this is my diagnosis story I was born in
Denmark and in the summer of 1997 I just graduated from high school and I was taking a year off
end up being a little bit more than a year but taking time off to figure out what I wanted with
life and during that year I wanted to work and I wanted to save up money to go travel the world so
that was a plan and that was what I did I worked two jobs sometimes three jobs to save up money I
worked in a daycare during the day and then I did either bartending or I worked at an amusement park
at night so I was quite doing quite a bit but I started to develop symptoms of diabetes I did
not know this I did not know anyone who lived with diabetes I had no knowledge of diabetes
but I started to become very very fatigued I would blame all the work I was also partying quite a bit
so there was that I was kind of burning the candle at both ends I would blame it on that
it got to a point where I was so tired that I would fall asleep at work so when the kiddos were
you know taking their naps sometimes I would fall asleep as well despite my best efforts
I also was I was very thirsty which is also a symptom of uncontrolled diabetes I was very
very thirsty I was also running to the restroom had to go pee all the time I correlated the two
in my mind I was drinking a lot of water because I was being healthy I was going to the restroom
a whole lot because I was drinking a lot of water so again I tied everything together then there was
a hunger I was always hungry but I always had a healthy appetite again I could explain everything
everything so I was eating a lot and not gaining any weight I wasn't dropping a whole lot of weight
probably because I still had an insulin insulin production but I was eating most
nights I was like eating a box of ice cream and not gaining weight and I thought it was amazing
but December came along and I’d had these symptoms for quite a while and I went to
a family event um my family celebrates Christmas so we get together a whole lot over the holidays
and I fell asleep I think before dinner and at one event and one of my aunts was like hey you
know this is not normal you should go see your doctor so I did I went and I saw my primary
care physician my primary care physician had been my doctors for years that was a family doctor
and he kind of I guess he looked at this 19 year old and we talked a little bit about well okay
what was my life like what am I my eating habits what am I
you know how much rest how much sleep how much water was it drinking so he was actually asking
a lot of the right questions and at one point he's like you know what you need to
eat healthy get your sleep blah blah blah but let me just measure your blood sugar
good thing he did he measured my blood sugar his finger stick in the office and he diagnosed me
right there and then he's like you have diabetes thing is he might have explained it in details
I do not remember I do not remember a single word aside from him telling me I had diabetes
I remember I knew nobody living with diabetes I knew nothing of the condition so to me what
I heard I heard a death sentence I walked out of his office and that's the only thing I had heard
I got on my bicycle because this was Denmark still in Denmark and everybody rides up bikes everywhere
so that was my mean of transportation and I rode home and all I could think about on the way home
was oh my goodness I’m gonna die so that part I guess I guess that part was fairly traumatic
and again he might have explained it so I’m not blaming him I just that's not what I remember
I came home and my mom was home and my mom is a nurse and luckily she all had a base
knowledge of diabetes and she couldn't explain to it to me she's like this type 1 diabetes
this is not a death sentence this is a condition that you can live with and you can live along with
all that happened on a Friday and not much else happened that day I came home from the doctor's
office I had a conversation with my mom I called my best friend but that was about it I wasn't
given insulin I wasn't told to put my finger I wasn't given any guidance on how to eat I was just
living my life that weekend I was being a little bit more cautious but without
knowing what to be cautious about but I was very fortunate that very close to where I grew up
as a really really good diabetes center called Steno diabetes center and I was
assigned to that center so we my mom and I went Monday so the Monday after I’d seen my doctor
we went there to get the basic training and learn how to deal with diabetes and
that was a really good experience I was assigned a pediatric nurse named Lotte and
Lotte was pretty awesome I actually reconnected with her again here a few years ago which was a
pretty special but a lot of pediatric nurse again I was 19 but I was assigned pediatric nurse
and she was the one who started out by pretty much telling me you know this is
a diabetes diagnosis isn't fun but it's nothing you can't deal with don't let this
stand in way of you living your life which was just what I needed to hear
again I thought it was a death sentence now being told this is not going to stand in the way of you
living your life she also taught me of course how to manage my diabetes how to count my carbs
how to do corrections all those things and it was all as outpatient that means I was in the center
with my mom during the day and then at night I would go home and the way that it worked the way
that they did things were that when I was there I was being taught about you know food insulin etc.
and when I went home my nurse would call me every few hours I can't remember every two
or four hours during the night I would go up I would call them this is before cell phones in 97.
Well I didn't have a cell phone at least I’d call her and go okay my blood sugar is x y and c and
she’d tell me whether or not to inject insulin or not and that was how they sort of titrated me
and to figure out what were my insulin needs also at the clinic one day Lotte and another nurse they
they told me to inject let's say five units and then we said they're like okay we need to talk
to you just you you know your mom can go somewhere else for a while so she did that and we sat down
and had a conversation and while we were having this conversation about whatever I don't remember
I my blood sugars were going low low low and I could feel it I were polite and I didn't want
to say anything because we're in the middle of the conversation but finally at one point I’m
like I’m sweating they're sitting there looking at me I’m like I’m so sorry I have to stop this
conversation I need some views and they're like you just oh congratulations I guess you can feel
your low blood sugar so that was kind of that was a controlled environment to make sure that I could
recognize what a low blood sugar would feel like and know what to do about it so I’ve gotten better
now I know that if I have a low blood sugar I’m not going to just be polite
I’m going to treat it so I was with Steno as an outpatient well patient I think this was three
days maybe it was five so that's where I got all the base training again I spent the nights at
home and after that you know I was sent home and then I came back for checkup every three months
I was started on insulin pens so a long-acting and a rapid-acting insulin for a basal bolus
and finger sticks I still use insulin pens I’ve tried a pump that wasn't quite for me
but I still use pens but now I also use a CGM Continuous Glucose Monitor and over the years
I’d say I’ve gotten my care has gotten tighter in my diabetes management my blood sugar has
gotten tighter as I’ve learned more because of course a lot of couldn't teach me everything
and a lot of the education after my initial diagnosis has quite frankly been on me
but I will say that lotus words saying there is don't let this hold you back there's nothing
you can't do diabetes stuck with me as I said when I started this video I was saving up money
to go travel the world and I did because one of the first questions I asked Lotto
was well I have this trip planned I knew I was going to go to India on an open ticket
meaning I was going to spend everything from a month or a year out I was like can I still go
and lord's response was like yes of course you're going you're going so that was quite amazing so
within a year of my diagnosis I was backpacking through India I had all my insulin and thermos
in my backpack and everything went wrong and I still figured it out
so this again I still did not have a cell phone at one point my insulin went bad
this was the older long-acting insulins that you had to mix so it's kind of like a
cloudy liquid that you had to mix and if you shook it it'd go bad and that's of course what happened
because I went on a camel trek to through some desert so all my insulin went bad um
and what did I do I couldn't really call Lotte on my cell phone so we were communicating over facts
and we figured it out and I figured out how to get new insulin and continue my journey and I
ended up only being gone well only it's a long time three months and it was a great adventure
and that was my diagnosis story I now been living with type 1 diabetes for 24 years coming up on 25
so it's been a while and I still live by the belief that there is nothing I can't do
with diabetes it might be annoying and I might have to do some workarounds once in a while but
you know there's definitely nothing I can't do I’ve traveled the world I have moved lived in
different countries um and just got an education I wanted married a great guy and life is pretty good
but I do wonder if things would have been different had I not ended up at Steno diabetes
center had law did not told me hey diabetes does not have to limit you it doesn't have to stand in
your way of doing anything you want I’ve been told that the other big diabetes center close to where
I lived had a completely different approach to how they educated newly diagnosed people
living diabetes so they had a more cautious approach so I do wonder if I’d been told hey
be careful or you can't do this or you can't do that if that had been the approach
I mean would my life been different I probably if I’ve been told you can't go to India or again you
can't do this and that my life has probably looked a lot different and diabetes would have been
that needed probably been a burden but I don't know
so actually I’d like to hear from you what was your story what was your diagnosis story
were you encouraged were you told to go live your life were you told to be careful and cautious
and how has that impacted you maybe it might be some long comments we're going to get but you
know I would I’m really genuinely curious and maybe even more importantly how do you approach
diabetes today how do you live with diabetes thank you so much for watching this video about
my diagnosis story if you liked it please give it a like below also if you enjoy my content if
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