My Diagnosis Story

Hi, my name is Chhavi. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2014 at the age of 24.

Let me take you through my diagnosis story. But before talking about the exact day of my diagnosis, let me put in perspective for you the month and a half prior to that. I had started my CA final exam leaves in March 2014. Since I was writing the exams a second time around (if you don’t know, with CA exams that is normal, you take a lifetime to clear the papers) the stress levels were very high. Around mid-April, I started losing weight. I had always been skinny but had gained substantially over the last one-year, courtesy “Wednesday free pizza” offer by dominos, which I had every single week for over a year. All this weight I had lost it in a jiffy. I am not a fitness freak or a diet person of any sorts. Being from a non-science background, I didn’t know the very basics of body and its functions; not something I am very proud of. And thus, I didn’t care how I lost the weight as long as I was getting back to looking how I always had. My mum, being a typical mother, however had a different take. She realized something was wrong even before it started to show with the weight loss. In the hindsight, I had all the symptoms associated with type 1 diabetes for over a month and half prior to my diagnosis. As I studied for almost 17 hours a day, with zero exercise, increased appetite, a thirst for water that never went down, increased  visits to the washroom, nothing was amiss for me, even though one Google search would have told me that these all signs pointed to me being a type 1 diabetic. And in pieces my brother and my father and mom noticed them, but again being unaware of anything about type 1 diabetes, none of us really tied it back to this. Mostly because, I almost never fell ill. A fever was a very rare occurrence.  During this time period, I had a bad skin infection, which refused to heal after 3 weeks of regular medicine. The dermatologist suggested we get a few tests done to be sure of what was wrong. But she said, it was probably all stress. And I went back home, a happy human. Nobody aware of what lay ahead of me in the next two days.

I got the tests done on a typical June morning, with sun shining brightly. So, on this said day, I had woken up all relaxed, just a bit tensed, because with CA exams, even when the exams are over, they haunt you till the result comes. Its like an invisible halo on your head, only it doesn’t shine brightly with positive energy, it could be the sign of the devil for all you want! And so, I went and  got my sugar fasting done, being told to come back two hours later for the PP sugar level testing. Post that I went ahead, met with a couple of friends, because I had just landed back on earth after four months of hibernation (that is true), I had the best day, ate mad amount of unhealthy junk and I was back home at 6 in the evening, still on the phone making plans with another friend for the next day when my brother walked in to my room, with a sense of urgency in his walk and seriousness in his tone and I knew something wasn’t right. My fasting levels were a crazy high at 350 mg/dl as per the lab report. As I got ready to go to see a doctor, my brother had already called up mum and dad. My maternal uncle had been in a near fatal accident the day before and so everybody was in another part of the town waiting for his surgeries to go through successfully. My cousin sister who happens to be a doctor told my brother to rush me to the nearest hospital and daddy rushed back just in time. The next one hour is a very vivid memory yet when I recollect, none of the details about that time are forgotten. My random sugar levels at the doctor’s office were 602 and I was immediately admitted in emergency, put on saline water, given my first dose of insulin, given a list of foods I was not allowed to have, at least not immediately, but most importantly I was in a hospital. Let me tell you, before that time, I had probably seen a doctor this seriously when I was 11 and had been diagnosed with thyroid. They had done a biopsy of sorts to rule out the worst and that was it. I was self-declared shit scared of needles, hospitals and doctors. My six monthly thyroid tests were the bane of my existence, until type 1 diabetes came along. And so, at that point, I was confused, as the nurse attending sat down to talk to me. She spoke at lengths, I heard in parts as I tried processing everything that had just been said. This was going to be my new normal. Needles, doctors, blood test, chasing optimal sugar levels, making exercise a routine (we are still figuring that one out). I remained in that hospital for over 15 days. I am always told I am fortunate that I have a family that saved me before it’s too late. And I couldn’t agree more.

Today four years later, a lot has changed. And I would like to believe for the good and better. There is a very long way ahead of me when it comes to successful diabetes management. No two days are same for me. Some days when the levels remain within the range, I smile to myself for having made it. On days that aren’t so good, I still smile knowing I did the best I could. There has been the period of denial where I refused to check my levels for days at stretch, there has been a period of ignorance at the starting of MBA when I couldn’t care if the levels went to high or low as long as the deadline to finish the submissions were met. And finally, I am here, in the period of acceptance, understanding, learning what life as a type 1 diabetic is. Out of these four years, I spent almost 2.5 years not acknowledging my situation, but a chance look at social media and the efforts put in by fellow type 1s to normalize their life changed my perspective. The last year and half have been eye opening, exhilarating, terrifying and yet exciting as I think of how I can make life better for myself and the newly diagnosed who look for support.

I look at so many fellow type 1s doing such great work in their lives and sometimes I am terrified thinking how I will ever make something productive of my life. But this is what I have learned, you learn, you adapt, you do, and you inspire. Each one of you. For they say, God gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers and I would like to believe that to be true about myself.