First finding out...

When I first found out I was diabetic I was 14 years old. I have now been diabetic for three years and am still struggling to come to terms with it. At the beginning it was very hard for me and all of my family, the upside to it was that we found out why i was having terrible mood swings.

The signs that my mum started worrying about was that; I was going to the toilet a hell of a lot, this would be stupid times like 4 in the morning then 6 in the morning and it would carry on like that every day. The second sign was that I was very drained and had no energy at all, I was finding it hard just to do basic things like helping round the house, at first my mum thought I had thrush as my tongue was completely white and I was drinking and going to the toilet a lot.

When I went to the doctors he took blood samples and sent them off for tests, that was on the Thursday. On the Friday the doctor personally came round to my house as he couldn't get hold of us, and told my mum that I could either get transported down to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness by ambulance or find someone who could take me, so my mum done the mad rush of getting my step dad to take me down.

When we got down we found out that I was in a severe state of Ketoacidosis , that my B.M. was nearly hitting the 40's and that I was a Type 1 Diabetic. I was put on a drip and put under a close eye of all the nurses. I was down in Raigmore for about a week, and while I was there I met the Diabetic doctors and nurses who specialise in these type of things. My diabetic doctor is now Dr. Ball and my diabetic nurse is Pamela Campbell, I see Pam on a monthly basis and Dr. Ball every three months or so. It was very boring down there as I was stuck in the hospital all day every day and was only allowed out for an hour for one day! While down there the nurses gave me my insulin there self as I was new to it all, but the showed me by giving me an orange and a syringe that I was using at the time. The basic idea of taking Insulin, is that you pinch the skin so that it doesn't go to the muscle and inject the amount needed. You have to make sure that you don't inject in the same places as this can lead to you getting small white lumps on the inside on your skin, which show through and can be very sore.
The sites you can inject are:

• Top part of your arm.
• Your stomach.
• Your thighs
• And your bum.

I also have a Chiropodist, Hamish Stuart, as with being diabetic you have to make sure everything is OK with your feet and legs and that you wont have any problems in the future or things that now seem to be fine to you or me, but to them spell disaster and possibly meaning your feet getting amputated in the future. Also as me being a diabetic it means that i have a very poor circulation, so i have to make sure I'm warm when it's very cold.