A bit about me: Most people call me Jess but I've been dubbed various things by various friends. The most popular and my favorite being The Lucky Druggie. Lucky because I always seem to survive things that I shouldn't like bouncing off cars, being born effectively dead (that was just a plain miracle), arguing with my mom. LOL Druggie is something one of my friends started last year shortly after I was diagnosed. The fact that I carried needles around in my pockets just made her laugh.

I had the classic symptoms before diagnosis. Gotta go, gotta drink, gotta sleep. That was my mode of operation for a few weeks. One night I had a complete emotional and mental breakdown. It scared the crap out of my parents. They told me I was to stay home from school the next day. Of course, I then yelled at them because I had a Calculus final the next day.

I slept through most of the next day. My mom had to forcibly shake me awake to get me to the doctor. The Doc listened to my symptoms and did a blood sugar test and urine analysis. My sugar was off the meter. There was definitely sugar in my urine too. He immediately sent me to the hospital. Turns out my blood sugar was 804 mg/dl. I was there for the rest of the weekend learning as much as they could give me. Which was a sizable stack. I greedily took it all in. By the time I left, I felt fairly confident. Then we got home and realized they hadn't told me how much insulin to take for the amount of carbs I ate. That first night was a bit rough. I had no idea how many carbs were in the dinner I was eating so I ended up overbolusing. I got to have the first bit of sugar I had been allowed all week. Sweet. :P

I got off to a rocky start but I impressed my doctor with the speed with which I jumped on everything. My A1c was 9.9 at diagnosis. Within 1 month I had it down to 7.3. I did great for a few months and then I slowly fell apart. I burned out and stopped taking care of my diabetes. Various events happened including a visit to the ER on the first day of college. Talk about a wake up call for my new roommates. It wasn't until a few months ago that I began to regain control. I  started keeping a regular blog, reached out to other diabetics online and finally got an insulin pump. This pump has changed my care completely. In the past month, I've gone from an A1c of 10.1 to an 8.3. This month's average being 128 mg/dl, at the moment.

So that's where I am right now. I'm diving into college and having a blast. I love making new friends so if you want to pop in and say hi on my blog, my welcome matt is out.