#i have so much more thoughts about it now dude im Unwell. i should write it down sometime

[valleyyofthemoonnn]

i went on a rant abt why i think percy/nico is a fundamentally Awful ship and is just a disservice to nico as a character at like 4 am last night and im awake now and STILL thinking about it along with other things that bother me about pjoverse and its fandom . God .

[typeonebro]

Hi, I’m probably just some rando and you’re seeing my post because of the tag or something. That’s fine. I just think this is a good way to get my feelings out. So, uh...you can keep scrolling :)

Anywhoo. I’m gonna just tell the story of my diagnosis and how, 3 months ago, I was diagnosed with type one diabetes. Some info to know before I start: I’m 15 (sixteen in April (just had to mention that)), I’m still new and confused, and I’m really putting myself out there by doing this. But the anonymity makes me feel better tbh. That’s all so ill start...

In July of 2019, I weighed 152 lbs. I wasn’t upset about it and I didn’t have any plans of losing it. But by the time mid-August came around, i weighed 132 lbs. It was odd to me because I wasn’t trying to lose weight. Sure, I was eating less, but I assumed I was growing because I grew half a foot in 7th grade when I lost my appetite. I told my grandparents and they blew it off, so I did too and eventually forgot to even mention it to my dad. 

That was just the start. In September and October, my nose, which was previously red, became worse and I got really thirsty. And I mean really thirsty. After school every day, my dad would take my brother and i to the gas station and he’d let us get a drink and a snack. I got two drinks and would have them both finished within 20 minutes. After finishing a liter of Coke and a large bottle of orange juice, I would think ‘wow, that’s new. must be my new thing instead of eating a lot’. And, honestly, drinking a gallon of oj and finishing a whole box of caprisuns did become my trademark. My grandpa began to buy two gallons of orange juice just for me. Yeah...we were that clueless. 

On top of the constant drinking, there was also constant peeing. In October, it was every hour and a half, two hours. By November, i was using the bathroom every thirty minutes to an hour. And it might be a little tmi, but this led to a yeast infection :\. I really don’t want to tell anyone that. Not even my closest friends know. But it’s a lesser spoken about thing with diabetes. And it’s not that gross. Okay, it is, but it’s important to talk about. 

So, November is kinda when things started to go south. I had been feeling weak since October and I started to miss school with a urinary tract infection, stomach viruses, and more. I was drinking more than ever, my tongue was sticking to the top of my mouth, I was awake every hour of the night; either peeing or trying to soothe my cramping legs. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I knew I was dying. I was just too numb to speak up about it. 

SO. The climax of the story: the last week of November. Sunday at the Christmas service at church, I felt like I was having a panic attack. I couldn’t breathe throughout the week, but the ironic part was on a Tuesday. I was feeling sick (as always at this point) and I told my friend, “Every time I look up my symptoms, diabetes comes up. I think I have diabetes”.

Ok--break. I should mention that I was (and still am) one of those people who joked about it. In my defense, I was half-serious because I had experienced hypoglycemia many times since I was ten and I’m a bit of a hypochondriac. But I was still joking. And I would like to apologize. I’m sorry, fellow diabetics. 

Back to the story: my friend told me that I should talk to my dad and tell him what I told her. So I did. He told me that I shouldn’t self-diagnose and that I was just being a hypochondriac. I said ok and we went on with our day.

Two days later, I’m still waking up every hour to pee and my leg is still cramping. But today, I feel a bit worse than usual. I don’t have the energy to squeeze myself into a pair of new jeans and I go to school, hoping my dad will see the pain I’m in. We go to school, he wishes me a good day, and I go to the cafe that my friends and i hang out in. There, I find two friends. They see that I’m still unwell, and don't mention it until I buy water and drop it on the table by accident, laughing, “haha I'm so dizzy”. That’s when one of them tells me that I should see a dr. I mention telling my dad and the bell rings, leading me down the hall to English.

In there, I lay my head down. Before long, I have to pee once again. I pull myself up and walk out into the hall. The teacher stops me and asks me if I'm okay. No. No, I'm not okay. I've gotta pee. She tells me that I look sick and writes me a pass to the nurse despite my refusal. At this point, i’ve missed wayyy too much school. But she sends me anyway. I go to the nurse, she sees that im having trouble breathing and lays me on one of the bed thingys. This woman pulls out a finger heart rate things, a blood pressure arm thingy, and a thermometer. I have no fever, but my heart rate and my blood pressure are a bit high. High enough to call my dad. 

Eventually, he comes to the school, picks me up and takes me home. Let’s wait for a few hours and see what happens. We wait from nine to twelve forty-five and he goes to get my brother from school. I’ve been in and out of sleep, but when he gets back, he puts everything down and leads me to the car. We go to the ER. 

In the car, I’m laid in the back on a pillow and my dad is driving while googling things on his phone. “I think you might have diabetes”

Ya think?

We get to the hospital, I’m shoeless and having the worst time of my life, and we walk into the wrong wing. A woman sees this and points us in the right direction, clearly seeing how sick I am--which, according to my dad, I looked like the personification of death. My dad was rushing my and I really had to restrain myself from snapping. Dude, I can't breathe and you're asking me to hurry. Chill.

So we reach the actual emergency room, people are staring, dad sits me down, and he goes to get my wrist band. I specifically remember looking down at my arms and rolling my sleeves up to see a red and purple arm. It scared me.

We didn’t wait long and a doctor lady came to get me to weigh me, get my heart rate, and check my blood pressure. “Do you smoke?” “Um, no?” “Oh wow”.

Turns out, I went from weighing 152 to 132 to 114 lbs. 

The real reason I was put into a wheelchair and rushed back to an actual room was that my heart rate was 172. That was scary. 

I was taken back, still holding my pee in, and they stuck sticky things to me and began to rapid-fire questions at myself and my dad. I remember noting that my dad told them I was taller than I actually was (I corrected him when things calmed down and he left the room). More doctors arrived to draw blood, give me ice chips and water, and to ask more questions.

Something that I’ve known since I was in the third grade is the fact that I have extremely small veins. It's hard for a lot of drs to draw blood. This time was no different. Twenty times, the same nurses came in to try different veins. A bruise was already forming in the crook of my right arm. 

I remember one of the older nurses walking in and sitting next to me. She said, “Looks like we’ve got a diabetic on our hands.”

After that, I didn’t really experience much shock. Really just thoughts of “when will I get to go home?” and “oh so now I've gotta prick my finger and watch what i eat”.

It was then that they decided to tell me that an ambulance was on its way to carry me to another hospital. The county I live in is small and doesn't have whatever was needed for me at the time, so I was sent to the larger county that I go to school in. 

The ambulance came, my dad rode with me, and I texted my friends. They didn’t believe me. Apparently, I joke too much about that type of thing.

After forty minutes, the ambulance stops, and I’m wheeled out of the ambulance, and into my new home for the next four days.

To be continued...?