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There I was, a small 4-year-old child, lying in a hospital bed. Lost, afraid, anguished, and without understanding what was happening to me and around me, I just sought to look at my parents and seek reassurance.

The days went by in the hospital, and I understood a little more of what was going on. I already knew that I could not eat sugar, and I was getting used to the daily insulin injection, finger pricking, and the number of people coming to visit me.

After I left the hospital, my life has never been the same. I say that every stage of diabetes was a personal growth.

I was no longer the child who only cared about not missing the favorite cartoon on TV, but also had to remember to measure my blood glucose at the right time, administrate insulin after eating, change the catheter on the right days, and regulate my eating. Of course I have always had the help of my parents; I will never cease to thank them.

But over the years, I have become more and more independent and today I am very proud to say that I have traveled without them to many places and I have even participated in an exchange program. This is a great achievement to me.

My diabetes has gone through different types of treatment. As soon as I left the hospital, I used to take insulin injections every time I ate or had very high blood glucose. Then I took two small injections daily, one in the morning and one in the evening, always monitoring my blood sugar. By the age of six, incredibly, I started using the insulin pump, which was only recommended for 12-year-old children. Fortunately, I adapted very well to the so-called “my little box”, since I no longer needed injections, got insulin twenty-four hours a day and only changed a catheter every five days. Then, four years ago, the last discovery that changed my life came: a new insulin pump called “OmniPod”. Thanks to this little pump, I could live more independently, I learned to change the catheter on my own, which my mother used to change and administer the injections, then I could travel, spend more than five days away from my parents and stay as much as I wanted in the pool or in the sea! In addition, I gained a lot in quality of life and my diabetes became much more controlled.

Now here I am an eighteen-year-old girl who, looking back at that frail four-year-old, could never imagine that she would become a strong, independent, self-confident person.