Hey guys, I’m Lucy! I’m a six year old type one diabetic and I also have OCD. I’m one of the kindest, bravest and smartest six year olds you will ever meet though!

 

I became a Type 1 when I was four years old. Starting just the day after Christmas in 2016 until January 22, 2017 I saw a total of four different doctors. None of them told me correctly what was wrong though. I was a normal kid though until this. I was healthy, until I started getting really small. I was only thirty pounds when I got told I was Type 1. I could not breath, I could not walk really, was shaky all the time and was wetting the bed almost every night. I did not want to play or have fun, I just wanted to sleep. I felt awful. One night though my Uncle Josh told my mom that she should check my blood sugar level or something. He’s not a doctor, just my uncle. Everyone got around me and my mom poked my finger. It just read “HI.” So she poked me again and again and we checked it over and over. It said the same thing every time. My parents rushed me to the ER and they had an answer for my parents very quickly. They took me in this really cool ambulance to Louisville where I was in something called the PICU for four days. Then they put me in the diabetic wing for two day. Which was pretty cool and amazing. I was in DKA. It was very severe. They doctor told my mom if I had not come in that afternoon that I would have died in my sleep that night. I’m still here though, I am very lucky.

 

This is not easy. I hate a lot of things about it. The poking, the highs, the lows. I do not like sitting out of stuff and injecting insulin. I hate waking up in the middle of the night. I do not like changing my pump and changing my Dexcom. I don’t hate diabetes though. It makes me strong and it makes me special. The good days outweigh the bad and it is honestly just another part of my life now.

 

I now have OCD though. It is very hard. It is new so I’m still trying. Therapy helps, but it does not make it easy. I have to try really hard to keep my obsessions in check and not let it affect every moment of my life. One day it will be just like my diabetes. Both of which will never define me.

 

Diabetes does not define me. My mental health does not define me. My kindness defines me. My personality that draws people in defines me. It is my love for all things girly and for me family and friends that defines me. I struggle everyday with my health. I am not a normal six year old. I am a remarkable human however and one day I will do big things. I won’t let my diseases define me, because its not diabetes and OCD that defines me. I define me.