When I was 15, I got mono. I had it for 7 months straight, and it was a living nightmare. I wasn't able to go to school, go outside, eat... I played video games, watched tv, and slept. If I tried to eat anything, I would get sick. I couldn't even eat a baby frosty from Wendy's. I was living on drinking Ensures pretty much that entire time. I was about 5'3" and I had lost a total of 14lbs. I weighed 88lbs then. After the 7 months, I started feeling a lot better. I was able to start going back to school, attend classes, and be normal. However, since I had been sick for so long, I had started being overly aware of when I was feeling bad. After about 2 months, I started drinking 8 bottles of water a night, urinating a lot, losing more weight, getting a terrible headache and feeling sick whenever I ate food and feeling "out of it" whenever I did some sort of exercise and didn't eat right away. I started immediately researching what was wrong with me, and diabetes popped up in all of my searches. I had all of the symptoms, I was completely convinced I had diabetes, I just wasn't sure what type. I told my family to take my to my pediatrician because I needed to get medication and start treating myself. They blew me off saying I was still crazy from the mono. 13 days after my 16th birthday, I finally got them to take me to my doctor. Before we got there, to be shown how wrong I was going to be, they got me a hot fudge sundae. I bet them $10 I would be diagnosed with diabetes. I told my doctor of my suspicion when I arrived and she did a urinalysis. Type 1 diabetes confirmed. Nemours Hospital pronto. It has been 8 years since that day, and my family doesn't doubt me when I say I feel sick now. I was the one who diagnosed myself. I still haven't gotten my $10 though...

Anonymous
Destin, FL