I posted this in Renee’s thread, but I just wanted to have it in my blog as well, because it’s just so fun to rehash old times! 
I was 18, and it was the summer after I graduated high school. I just got back from a trip to NY with some friends from my ballet studio when I started noticing I was going to the bathroom a lot more than usual. Then I started noticing I was losing weight as well.
When I went to my new student conference at my university later in the month, I recall sitting down at dinner and my mom commenting on my thirst (Dr. Pepper FTW!) and frequent bathroom visits by saying, “you know these are symptoms of diabetes,” and then me replying, “oh yeah, that’d be a disease I would get.” I said this because all my life I’d been much of a sweet tooth. ^^
I didn’t know much about diabetes at all. I remember a kid from elementary school whose name I don’t even remember having it. And I have an uncle I don’t see much who has type 2. I knew vaguely that there were two types, and I vaguely thought that often the kids who got it required insulin shots.
So the rest of the summer went on and I continued to drink a lot and lose weight. I would get up to pee multiple times during the night and I remember a weird film in my mouth that was so annoying I kept a wash rag next to my bed to spit into. I remember picking up an encyclopedia (ahaha, pre-internet!) and looking up diabetes and saying to myself, “yep, this sounds just about right.”
But I never went to the doctor!
Finally, in August, I got sick. Flu-like symptoms: fever, achy, throwing up constantly. Because I felt so bad, I completely forgot about the whole diabetes thing (and I’d never heard of DKA). One morning, I couldn’t even exist without immense pain. I spent the entire night before on the bathroom floor. In the morning I crawled into my mom’s bed and told her I needed to go to the doctor.
She drove me to the hospital. On the way, I was completely disoriented. I remember sitting in the car trying to put on my shoes and thinking I forgot to bring one of them, but it was actually in my hand!
I passed out not long after being admitted to the hospital, and was in intensive care for one or two days. Then I was transferred to a regular room where I remained a week. When they told me I was type 1 diabetic, it was no big shock and at the time I was just relieved to feel better!
A couple notes from my hospital stay: one morning, when they told me I was going to be released, I ate the hospital food breakfast and went to shower. When I came out and they checked my BS, it was around 450. I had to stay an extra day in the hospital. To this day I have this paranoia about showers making my BS rise!!!
Also while in the hospital, a nurse sat me down and said, “maybe you should hold off on college and take the year off.” That was the only time I cried about being diagnosed with diabetes. Ridiculous nurse.
I didn’t take the year off, and headed to college just a few weeks later!