About The Life of a Diabetic

My name is Chris Stocker and I am a type 1 diabetic.  I wasn’t always diabetic, but things changed when I was 19 years old.  I grew up the first 18 years of my life knowing close to nothing about diabetes, other then some kid in high school that I knew who stuck himself to get blood out, what a crazy thing to do!  Then in my freshman year of college I started to become extremely thirsty and drink a lot of soda and juices and sports drinks.  Then I started waking up 4-5 times in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and my roommate at the time did not like it.  Then came the weight loss.  “Alright, I’m finally cutting back weight,” was my initial reasoning.

Finally, came the Friday morning when I woke up and felt extremely nauseous.  Vomited once, twice, three times, four times, on the fifth or six time at about 11 p.m. Friday night a buddy on the same floor said, “You look like you’re dying I’m taking you to the hospital!”  After my parents rushed an hour to come pick me up and take me to the emergency I was pushed to the front of the line and into an ER room.  The doc came in and said, “Chris, you are diabetic.”  No worries I thought, just won’t eat ice cream anymore, that’s all, easy, solved, done with this let me go.

After 3 days in ICU and 2 days in a normal room I was sent home.  I started on 5 insulin pen shots a day with Lantus syringe at night.  After year and a half I switched over to a pump.  I still wear an insulin pump and continuous glucose monitoring system.  My A1C’s are decent, not always the best, but manageable.

I now live in south Florida and have a great diabetes team around me, headed up by my amazing and beautiful girlfriend and her family.  My family lives in Pennsylvania and they are here with me at mind and heart, just not physically.  I grew up my first 20 years of life in Easton, PA.  I started my own SEO company in Delray Beach in 2009.  I now spend my time working and learning about search marketing and writing and advocating for diabetes.