Diabetes has never really gotten in the way of my day to day life, except for a few low blood sugars here and there, so I decided to stretch the boundaries and spend some time abroad this summer. In fact, when I was making plans to travel abroad, I did not think of diabetes as the determining factor. I couldn’t let the disease take away the travel opportunities that I had been given. I knew that going abroad for a total of six weeks would really test my ability to take care of myself, so it was important that everything ran smoothly.

Diabetes seems to interfere with many aspects of life such as eating, showering, relationships, driving… the list could go on and on. I have received many questions about how to handle diabetes while at the same time being a “normal” person. Although I haven’t had much experience in some of these areas, I know that if there’s a will, there’s a way:

1) Tell people you are a diabetic

Many people think that being diagnosed with diabetes is, socially, the end of the world. In some ways, yeah, it is! The hardest adjustment for me was connection. I did not know many people with diabetes, and could not ask someone going through similar circumstances what it was like. I had tools that helped make diabetes an easier part of my life, but nothing to replace the importance of someone saying “I understand.”

For the past twelve years of my life, I have been privileged to have a great family, a stable support network of friends, and many opportunities to succeed at anything I want to pursue. However, there has always been one thing that I can’t change in my life, no matter how many great things have happened: the fact that I have type 1, or juvenile diabetes.