In about a week and a half I will enter my 4th year of having diabetes.
In about two weeks I will graduate college, after a 4 year program.
This has me thinking: I don’t know what it’s like to have diabetes, outside of college. Sure I had about 4 months prior to my freshman year, but those 4 months were filled with learning what diabetes was, how to count carbs, how to properly dose insulin, how to change my own ratios, etc. I remember I was on the “speedy” track of diabetes education at the local Children’s Hospital (granted I was 18, but my primary doctor figured it would be the most useful education-wise. Best decision he ever made in my 18 years of life).
Anyway, once I went to college, I found a local nurse practitioner (NP) and she was so awesome. She helped me get on a pump 9 months after diagnosis and helped me figure out how college and everything that comes with it (abnormal schedule, abnormal food (if you can call it that) from the cafeteria, stress, etc.). So I adapted. I learned about diabetes while I learned about college. I discovered diabetes and food poisoning, diabetes and all-nighters, diabetes and exam week, diabetes and roommates, diabetes and abnormal schedules, diabetes and well, pretty much anything else you can think of.
Well now, here I sit, 15.5 days away from college graduation and I am wondering what life after college will bring and what diabetes after college will bring. Will I better manage it? Will I eat better? Will my (hopefully) regular schedule help with the slowly upward creeping A1C? Will I take a more proactive role in my diabetes treatment?
I know the majority of that is up to me and I am hoping that I can do that – especially the better management and proactive role, but it’s still a mystery as to how much will actually be different. Perhaps nothing… or perhaps everything.
In time, I will find out.
