Is it Stress or Diabetes?: Juliette's Journey with Type 1 Diabetes, Part I
This two-part article was written exclusively for IAD.com by Juliette Beaulieu. In this article Juliette discusses her struggle with type 1 diabetes, how much she struggled with the diagnosis and what she has found helpful in her path to managing her condition.
Being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes came as a surprise to me and going back on what happened I realize now that before I was ever diagnosed, diabetes had already been impacting my life without my knowledge.
Losing the Rhythm
Everything started to decline my last semester of college. Back then I thought it was just stress, but things just didn't add up because I've always been a good student with high marks. Things came easy to me, marketing was my thing and I loved it. Besides going to school I also had a great job, which I loved, working for charities. Everything seemed great but January came around and I started feeling really bad all the time, more than in the previous months. I became somewhat concerned but I really did not have time to think much of it.
Suddenly, my performance at school got so bad that I was failing tests, something which had never happened to me before. I was also no longer able to get sponsors at work. I couldn't concentrate at all and I couldn't string words or thoughts together in a coherent manner. It become bad enough that at the end of January I lost my job. At first I was upset because I loved my job, but after some thinking I thought about it as a new opportunity to focus more on school and get my grades up.
Finding Hope Again
Nevertheless, my grades continued to slip. On one occasion a group I was working with tried to have me leave the group because I was simply just too tired to keep up with the assignments we were given. I wasn't able to get out of bed and when I did manage it I'd get to school at there early and leave not too long after, all so I could go back home to bed until dinner time. I was so tired, dehydrated and just so drained all the time.
At the beginning of March things seemed to be looking up. I got another job and I started going to the gym again. Then without warning the same thing happened and my fatigue returned but with even more force. I was extremely dehydrated and my mouth was dry all the time. I started to get horrible leg cramps at night and I had to go to the bathroom literally every 20 minutes.
A Rude Awakening
I didn't know what was wrong with me, but I had an idea of what it was in the back of my mind. In November, when I had first experienced the same symptoms of fatigue, I had taken the time to look them up online. I found out that what I was experiencing correlated with the symptoms of diabetes and that I should be tested for it, but I decided to ignore it.
March 18th, 2014, was the day that changed my life forever. That morning I woke up with the uncontrollable urge to vomit. It was awful, but I toughed it out and went to school anyway. I got to class and my teacher sent me right to the clinic on campus because I looked so pale and lifeless. At the clinic they had no idea what was wrong with me so they had to send me to the hospital instead.
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