Young people infected with Covid-19 are more likely to develop diabetes (type 1 or 2). Please pay attention to illness you or people you know experience after recovering from Covid-19.

Severe dry mouth, frequent urination, fatigue, hunger, and headaches are common signs someone has developed diabetes. The link below takes you to a site that lists symptoms more clearly. This is not to scare anyone, just be aware please.

https://www.uofmhealth.org/health-library/aa21178

It’s that when someone who is chronically ill goes to the ER or doctor for a problem that they know isn’t related to their illness and the doctor writes all of it if as a side effect of mismanagement of their disease. This can be really really dangerous and can cause us so much pain.

I hit my head really bad a couple months ago. I was dizzy and couldn’t think straight. I was in a lot of pain and confused. My mother took me to the emergency room because clearly it was serious. They took me back, and the first thing they did was test my blood sugar. They didn’t ask questions about why I was there, or ask how they could help, even though I was crying and begging for them to turn the lights off.

My blood sugar was a little high. Not really high. Only a little bit. And suddenly that’s all they cared about. They made me walk to the bathroom for a urine test even though I couldn’t see straight. They got annoyed when I didn’t have to go. They pumped fluids and insulin into my body and made me sick. They kept testing my blood sugar. Only one nurse offered to turn the light off and give me an ice pack for my head. When the doctor came in he started talking about blood sugar management. My mom had to interrupt him and tell him we were there because I had suffered a bad hit to the head. He said no one had even informed him.

It took over an hour for them to do an xray and mri of my head. In which they figured I had probably had a minor concussion. Then when I started feeling better they insisted they were not going to discharge me until my blood sugar was under 140.

I was told up until I was fucking 17 that I could try harder to stop it if I believed harder in God. Until I was 10, I was told I might need an exorcism because it might be "the devil's influence" on me. It won't come as a surprise that telling a child already freaked out by the fact that they can't control their body that it could be POSSESSION.... Does not help that child's mental state.

Even now, I'm fully dxed and all that but I still get told by old family members that I'm not doing enough to manage it. I'm the only one with this disorder in my family, I know how to deal with it, but they all assume that there must be some sort of treatment or cure (usually based in ✨✨positive thinking✨🌟✨ and 💫religious reflection💫✨❤️❤️✨💫), and that by not doing the things they recommend, I must have "given up" somehow.

It's such an upsetting thing to deal with. I'm sorry you're going through it too, but I'm glad I'm not alone in this sort of experience.

As someone with a chronic illness that very much impacts every single day of my life I want to talk about religious trauma and the ways that people have brought their faith into my health and condition that makes me… frankly uncomfortable. 

I have type 1 diabetes, completely insulin dependent, for over a decade now. No end in sight. I was just a kid when I was diagnosed, 6 years old, in kindergarten. It's safe to say that this is basically all I've ever known in life. But I think that most people with a chronic condition will find that they relate to this, or have experienced something similar, no matter what it is you have. 

Ever since I was diagnosed I have been hearing things along the lines of “God wouldn’t give you something you couldn’t handle” or “God only did this to you because he knew you were strong and could handle it” or what is probably the worst, “God is testing you”. And no matter how many times I hear it, it always feels like a direct slap to the face. It stings. 

I was raised catholic, live in a quite religious area.finding someone here thats not religious is very hard. I personally do not believe in any higher power myself, and this is not limited to christianity in particular, but that's what I am most familiar with, so it is what I am referencing in this post.

Those things that I've been hearing all my life, they were said to me or my family in a twisted way of trying to bring comfort, but it never brought me any, and subsequently made me deal with a lot of crappy feelings a young kid and teen that really seriously messed with my mind. 

I thought I had done something wrong my whole life, that this was my fault and that I deserved it. God doesn’t make mistakes, he doesn’t punish people that are good. If I had just been better, then I wouldn’t be suffering, it was my fault, is all I heard. That I needed to be tried by God so he could make sure I was worthy of life, that I needed to prove myself more than others did for some reason. 

I tried to pray to god constantly, asking for him to help me, or forgive me, fix me please, because I was sorry for whatever I did, I promised to dedicate my life to him if he just, took this disease away from me. I wasn’t even ten years old when this happened. I couldn’t comprehend any of that, I just heard people imply that God was doing this to me for a reason, so if I could somehow fix it with him, I could get better. I grew resentment later on for God because I didn’t know what I did wrong, how could he punish me for something I wasn’t even aware I did?

I was six when I was diagnosed. Looking back this thinking was irrational because what could a TODDLER do so wrong to be cursed for the rest of their life? It hurt me as a kid because I was taught that God was good, and that he didn’t make mistakes, and that he was above all. And somehow he let this happen to me, which means it must have been my fault. I was young, and dumb, of course I would think this when every single person told me that god was testing me, putting me through a challenge, like this wasn’t my entire life that went completely off course in the span of a week. 

People still say this to me, over ten years later. And I no longer believe in God. I just wish I could understand why these people truly think that I need to be tested more than others, and holding onto that, why others have it even worse than me. Why would any divine god that supposedly cares for everyone feel the need to make certain people's lives harder than others for no reason. 

It took years of undoing that thinking in my brain, that I did something wrong and this was just divine punishment for it. I grew to realize it was almost more of a comfort to the person saying these things than it was an attempt to comfort me about my struggles. They don’t like to think about the chance that their beloved God would allow something bad to happen to people without good reason. They had to reassure something within themselves too, that it wasn’t a mistake by their creator but happening because of some divine will. 

And I have no problem with people being religious, I don’t. But as soon as you bring it into my life and try to write away my suffering by saying that God is testing me, a god that I don’t even believe in, I have lost my respect for you. I had a friend ask one time when I was in the hospital for DKA if it was ok to pray for me. And of course I said yes, because that actually means a lot to me, that you want to ask the being you believe to be divine to help me, even if I don’t believe it too. It’s very respectful and I don’t mind when people say things like “I’m keeping you in my prayers”. But do not imply to me that YOUR God is doing this to me for a divine reason. 

I’m going to start by apologizing for being completely absent on this account for months, I am hoping to revamp it, but I have been busy, unfortunately, with school and the world right now. 

This post is days fcking late because I have been shaking with anger since the terrorist attack on the Capital and I didn’t want to really make this post until I could at least contain a little bit of my anger and outrage, as a chronically ill activist from America. 

I want to make it clear that I will not be referring to the events that took place as anything other than a domestic terrorist attack, and all the participants as terrorists and traitors. Point blank.

I have been advocating once or twice a year, every year, for seven or eight years, on Capitol Hill, in order to push for the basic necessities to live even REMOTELY comfortably in the United States as a type 1 diabetic. Talking to congresspeople and senators in order to try and push for affordable insulin, which I will remind you, IS A LIFE-SAVING, NECESSARY MEDICINE. To advocate for more funding, to ask that they not shut the door on the issue, to practically plead with them to make my future SECURE, because I did NOT choose this, and I should not have to DIE with it. 

I go every year to ask them to make sure safe at school rules are required still, so no kids in the future will have to deal with their necessary medical supplies being taken by shitty teachers, the way that it has happened to me, so that no other kids have to deal with the stress of their unpreventable condition affecting the way and the amount that they learn. Because WE did NOT choose this. 

I wait my turn, I take 15 to 20 minutes with them, or maybe just an intern, to tell them stories, to tell them how I have to fear for my stability in the future, to plead that they understand the severity of the situation, because unaffordable medication and supplies KILLS, and makes people’s lives MISERABLE, all because of something that cannot be prevented. 

I am POLITE to these government workers, even if they aren’t paying attention, even if they have a history of not caring at all, I am patient with them, I have been since I started doing this at SEVEN FUCKING YEARS OLD. I have had my share of rude comments, from the republicans that insist we don’t need the funding we ask for, that insist it is somehow preventable, that if you work hard enough it isn’t such a problem, that there is simply no justifying the cost. 

Once or twice a year, I go to the Capital. I wait in lines, I wait until the right time for our appointment, I cause no disruption in their office, I cause no problems in the Capitol building, I respect whatever they ask, even if they ask to talk only shortly outside their door. 

And they just let those terrorists in. They let them storm the FUCKING CAPITAL because they couldn’t grow the fuck up and face the music. Trump lost. Fair and fucking square. But I saw the police LETTING THESE PEOPLE IN. I SAW THEM GET AWAY WITH LITTLE LESS THAN A SLAP ON THE WRIST. 

And I, as someone who is chronically ill, and has been cheated out of a secure future, and the millions of others like me, other disabled people. Who have been cheated out of LIFE and SECURITY from their own goddamn nation because the government is too cowardly to help us. Disabled and chronically ill people get the short end of the fucking stick every goddamn time. 

I, and everyone like me, have the RIGHT to look these officials in the eyes and call them cowards for not helping, we have the right to be FURIOUS, to talk to them with contempt, because they will not help us, they will not even listen. We should not have to be respectful, we shouldn’t have to wair our turn once a fucking year, but we do because we respect the process. 

Those traitors took a shit on the United States and our LEADER encouraged them every step of the way. What about the people with pre existing conditions who worry every year that maybe they won’t have good enough insurance to SURVIVE another week. 

Fuck every single person there, and anyone who instigated it. The terrorists heads should’ve been shoved in the ground, they should have EATEN FUCKING DIRT. 

I'm sorry to the mothers and fathers who live with less food and struggle to buy new clothes so they can simply keep their child alive. The mothers and fathers who cry in the parking lot of their pharmacy because they couldnt buy their child's medicine that keeps them alive. The mothers and fathers who love their kids to death and will skip many meals to save their child's life. The mothers and fathers that have to limit the food and clothing of their own children, seeing them cry because of how hungry they are, and how they dont like the schools free food that is given to them.

The diabetics who get a common cold and end up in the hospital with many expenses just because of high ketones.

The children who have developed depression and anxiety disorders because of their diagnosis and what comes with it. The children who always hated being different, the children who cry themselves to sleep at night because their blood sugars arent as good as they are supposed to be.

The children whose parents make it seem like their fault. The children whose parents put them on a strict diet because they dont realize it doesnt help. The children whose parents make it known that they dont like spending that much money on keeping them alive.

The young adults scared to get into their late 20s because theyll have to get off of their parents insurance plan that has kept them healthy for so long. The young adults who are terrified of going into the real world for the first time because of their diabetes.

To the people who get blamed for a disease that wasnt their fault. To the people who get ignored because people think it's weird or contagious.

To the students that have to miss learning and class because of bad blood sugars or endo appointments. The students who know the nurse better than anyone else. The students who have to get special notes and hallway passes to carry a bag filled with supplies.

Hey. I havent been active in a while and I apologize for that. Been a stressful month. Anyways I'm back with some advice that will hopefully be helpful :)

- Having a bad week does not mean you're bad at managing it.

- Theres no reason to be ashamed, but it's okay to not want to talk about it or be an advocate

- sometimes it's okay to put insulin after and just worry about eating first.

- your mental health is just as important as your physical health

- you dont owe anybody an explanation but if you want to explain it, that's okay

- you should really change your Lancet

- dont stress about going to your endo. They're there to help you be healthy and happy with yourself, not to judge you.

- as much as I hate to admit it, cookies are not good things to eat to being you up from a low. Have some juice.

- fruits, while healthy, have lots of carbs. Count for them appropriately

- peanut butter is a good snack, low carb and lots of protein.