Many people with either Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes can imagine how scary getting the news from a doctor saying they have to monitor every piece of food they eat and keep themselves alive with finger pricking, taking insulin shots or pills to keep a stable sugar level every single day. For my family and I it was something we had never expected.

People ask me since I've had this illness, does it run through the family or do you just have a poor diet? The truth is, the first ever COVID lockdown in 2020 had my body both physically and mentally exhausted, causing my stress levels to hit the room and send my pancreas into failure where I soon started changing who I was for the worse. I was only 17 years old which I thought was unheard of when I was diagnosed, but my doctors have suspected that I was living with high blood sugars for the last six months from June 2020 until I got diagnosed two weeks before Christmas that year.

It was a struggle every day before my diagnosis. I wasn't doing well in school anymore, my personality was changing and my sleep schedule was ruined from having to go to the toilet every hour because of how thirsty I was. Having diabetes for me was such a surprise. Something funny was how my lovely nana had mentioned that I might actually have it after I told her I was drinking five huge bottles of water a day. I thought that couldn't be possible because of my age that I was a healthy girl with having enough physical activity that I would be okay.

As the last three months of the year were rolling around, I was getting worse and worse by the day. Feeling sick every day, getting 12 hour viral vomiting bugs and not handling well in the heat. I was feeling faint and disoriented all the time and working part time as well didn't help that much either. I had to use more energy that I already didn't have to get me through the first few hours.

It was my mum's idea that we go see my GP to get her opinion on why I was feeling this way. We got every kind of test done to determine what was going on. Blood tests were done in the morning of 10 December 2020, they did the works with the test doing a full work up, I was looking the worst I could have ever been, I still carried on my day and went to work in the afternoon as normal and for once feeling semi-okay, but it wasn't over yet. After my first break the general manager pulled me out of the department's office saying that my mother was here to pick me up. But I had no idea why. I left my car in the parking lot and went with her to the hospital.

My mum got the call from the doctor in afternoon around 5pm saying that I needed to get up to the hospital ASAP because at any moment that day I could have dropped into a coma because my sugar levels were at an all-time high, 35.6,  something that should be looked at as soon as possible. My mum explained what was happening on the way to the hospital and before I knew it, I was in the emergency room on a bed getting the confirmed news that I have Type 1 diabetes. But all of this made massive sense of why the last half of 2020 was so hard for me, especially during school.

I spent the next two days in hospital learning how to take care of myself now that I have extra steps with every meal and snack I have. I was definitely scared adjusting to my new life and the different ways I had to look at things. But I had all the love and support from my family and friends that kept me going for the good. The hardest part of learning how to do everything myself was that I had to inject myself with insulin and my family and I knew that I had a very big fear of needles, a big hiccup in the process to get me back to reality.

Going into last year I was ready for whatever had hit me, I was slowly getting the hang of pricking my finger and testing my blood every two hours and every time I ate. But going back to school was definitely challenging as I had this massive illness that I had to take care of. I also had to try and not let anyone judge me for what was going on in my life. It was my last year of high school and I was scared of what was going to happen in the future, but I was told by my amazing diabetes psychologist that I just had to live in the moment and worry about tomorrow when tomorrow came around.

During the middle of the year I had an amazing chance to give the Freestyle Libre Glucose monitoring system a try and it changed the way I had managed my blood sugars, by being able to just scan the sensor and see what they were doing I was able to focus more on me and my school work.

2021 was definitely a rollercoaster for me. I had multiple times where I wanted to just give up and let it take over my body, leaving me in such horrible phases. I got pulled out of those and soon was back on track. For once in my life, using the Freestyle Libre sensor was in control of my health, especially in the first lockdown in August last year. All my levels were in the best areas they could have been and I was feeling amazing. Thanks to the Freestyle Libre, 2021 was a much easier year to have control over my body and I was able to feel like myself again. The only challenging thing about it was having to pay the $100 every two weeks just to have it on my body. It became difficult towards the end of the year as the Libres were slowly leaving me in a terrible state. it was hard to pay for one every two weeks and then sometimes it would fail and then having to pay for a new one to keep my bloods monitored. I stopped using the Libre and monitoring my blood just became a hassle as I had scars all over my fingers from pricking them all the time.

One thing my family and I are trying to help is the campaign to get the continuous glucose monitors funded in our country because the way that they helped me stay out of a hospital bed could help thousands of others. The Freestyle Libre was the best medical advice I got from the diabetes nurse, Bonnie. She pushed me to try many things to help me with the tracking of the blood sugars, so without her help and her guidance to the Freestyle Libre, I probably wouldn't be here today telling you my story.