Today is my 8 year diaversary. I don’t celebrate or put much attention on it, but this year I have decided to talk about it a little more than that I usually do. 8 years ago from today, it was a Friday and I was extremely sick. I can still remember that day like it was yesterday. Having no clue or no idea what was wrong with me, while all my college football friends were out partying. I remember that it was recruit weekend, and I was supposed to have a recruit staying with me, but I had my roommate take him out instead, I felt bad. After throwing up for nearly 12 hours, one kid who decided not to go out that night felt that I needed to go to the hospital because in his words, “I looked like death”.
That’s when my life changed forever. A trip to the emergency room at about 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, April 3, 2004. As soon as I went into the emergency room, they attempted to test my sugar and I just remember that machine making a loud beep noise and the nurse saying, “ut-oh, that’s not good.” Yea, no shit!
I went straight back into an ER room when they started taking blood and giving me ice chips and an immediate insulin drip. That’s when the doctor walked in and said, “you have diabetes.” Three words that changed the rest of my life. I didn’t know how serious it was until he told me that if I would have went to sleep that night, I probably would have went into a coma and not woke up (BG was 8585). That was some pretty serious stuff to me.
Fast forward 8 years and here I am now. My life has changed completely. I live in a totally different part of the country, I am getting married in a year, I own my own business, I live every day to the fullest, and I am pursuing my dreams. Wait, by the sounds of that, you would think that I am a normal person? Oh yea, that’s right, I am. I am just a person living a normal life, but with diabetes.
I’ve made a lot of improvements in my diabetes management and attitude towards diabetes since I was diagnosed, but I have a far way to go to be where I want to be. I have never let diabetes let me down or get me sad. It’s just something that was thrown at me and it’s another challenge I must overcome. When I was a junior in high school, I had a knee injury, that to me, changed my life even more. I was an ESPN top 100 football recruit with full ride scholarship offers to some of the top schools in the country. My dreams of playing QB professionally were looking good. Then BAM, a total knee-reconstruction and I saw those scholarships slowly start disappearing. I didn’t let that stop me, I kept working until I was able to land a spot on a college football team. I used that as my motivation to help me get through the diabetes diagnosis.
8 years down and many more to come.
Happy diaversary, Chris! Thanks for sharing your dx’d story. It’s amazing how strikingly similar many of our stories are on the time D came into our lives. Like that you phrased it “normal, just living with diabetes.” Exactly. I didn’t traditionally highlight my diaversary, mostly because I didn’t know exactly when it was. But also because I didn’t think it was worth “celebrating.” But then, after finding the DOC, it became clear to me that I really am proud of surviving and successfully living another D-year. So, there we go! Great to hear how life is progressing for you!