Introduction

Welcome to my diabeteblog. I'm rainbow. I'm 40 years old, and I've had Type 1 diabetes since I was four years old. I did not get diabetes because I was fat, because I was inactive, or because I ate too much sugar.

No one is quite sure why I got diabetes, but the prevailing theory is that it was due to an autoimmune reaction caused by a case of the mumps. My body created antibodies that for some still-unknown reason attacked the beta cells in my pancreas instead of attacking the mumps virus.

I had all the usual symptoms: rapid weight loss, fatigue, extreme thirst, numerous trips to the bathroom to pee. My mother tried to deny there was anything wrong with me. She'd try to forbid me to drink water, leading me to sneak into the bathroom in the middle of the night to drink straight from the tap. My dad tried to talk to her about it; he'd seen public-service announcements on TV from the Canadian Diabetic Association that described my symptoms perfectly, but my mother ignored him. She didn't want there to be something wrong with me, and she was scared.

One day my parents took all of kids to visit a family friend. My brother and sister immediately went out to play with the friend's kids. They were outside running around, while I was lying listlessly on the couch. My parents tried to persuade me to go join the other kids, but I was almost totally unresponsive. This, according to my dad, was the turning point. He was quite certain now that something was seriously wrong with me.

The next day at home I was again lying on the couch and not moving. My dad picked me up, carried me to the car and announced that we were going to the hospital. I guess my mum didn't have any choice but to go along! Once I was there the diagnosis was immediate: juvenile diabetes. The nurses had trouble starting an IV in my arm because my veins were so small. My dad remembers watching them poke my arm several times trying to hit a vein with the IV needle, and me not even whimpering. He says that scared him half to death.

I was in the hospital for a week, and then I went home to discover that everything had changed. Suddenly I had to have shots every day. I couldn't eat candy or chocolate bars. My mother took care of my diet, my shots, and the awful urine tests that had to be done four times a day until I was old enough to do it myself.

That was 36 years ago. Things have changed since then, mainly for the better; there are newer types of insulin, and urine tests are mostly a thing of the past. But there are times when I find myself thinking: "Okay, why haven't they found a cure yet?"