Embracing student life
The year I was diagnosed was also the first time I lived independently– cooking questionable meals, going out (a little too much), sleeping in (definitely too much), and feeling genuinely free. Then, in mid-October 2020, I started feeling rough and went to a testing centre where I tested positive for COVID-19.
Knowing what I know now, I look back and wonder - was that the moment it all began? Emerging research says maybe. I’ve read studies on how the pandemic may have influenced rising rates of type 1 diabetes in young people. Diagnoses seemed to spike during that time, though the reasons still aren’t fully understood. Still, reading those studies helped - it reminded me that I wasn’t alone in what I was experiencing.
Shortly after my COVID experience, I felt the horrific symptoms of what I later learned was diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). I was lying in my university room, dizzy, disoriented, and vomiting repeatedly over the course of three days. I blamed 'freshers' flu' – even though socialising was so limited at the time. I had no idea that my body was shutting down.
My mum was very worried about me when we spoke on the phone, so I took the train home to Dorset in mid-December. She took one look at me and was shocked – I’d lost a lot of weight, my skin was grey, and my eyes had dark circles hanging under them. In the days that followed, staying at home, I could not stop thinking about consuming sugary drinks. I even dreamt of them. I didn’t know it then, but that overwhelming urge was my body screaming for insulin so it could process all the excess sugar in my body.
On Christmas Eve, I finally listened to my mum's concerns and saw a GP. My blood sugar was 40 mmol/L. I was told at this point that any reading over 11 was in the diabetes range, so a level of 40 was potentially really dangerous. When the doctor told me I had an emergency hospital appointment, I rang my sister. She seemed very worried, more worried than I was, because I didn’t yet understand what I was facing.
A few hours later, at the hospital, they broke the news: type 1 diabetes. I was told I was about a week away from falling into a diabetic coma.
"Time stood still as they talked about insulin, hypoglycaemia, and hyperglycaemia, none of which I really understood yet."
I began to grapple with the reality that I’d have to inject multiple times a day for the rest of my life, and that I’d need to quickly sharpen up my maths to calculate insulin-to-carb ratios.