A little background info...

Alright, story time!

I figure before this blog really takes off you might want to know my story, my diagnosis story that is. Well here it goes:

I was born in Dallas, Texas. I have a twin brother (fraternal), actually we don't know who is older... something about sibling rivalry according to my mom. When I was 6 we moved to Grand Forks, North Dakota. In my opinion, never go there. I spent my childhood there until I was 12 years old. Charlie, my brother, and I were always very active in a sport for every season There was soccer in the Fall, basketball in the Winter, and baseball in the Summer. I always loved doing things, and I had a companion in Charlie to always stay busy.

We moved to Saint Louis in middle school and have been here since. Charlie and I both became very involved with cross country and track and field in high school. While this activity kept us healthy and fit, it also generated a humongous appetite. "carbo-loading" as some people call it, was a normal thing for me. I could sit down and eat a whole box of pasta without batting an eye. And that was OK because I would able to run it off.

I then found myself at Saint Louis University, partially because my father is a research endocrinologist here, and partially because I wanted to stay close to home. I stopped running but took on ultimate frisbee as a new sport and stayed in shape because of it. I joined a fraternity, turned 21, and was a normal, sometimes crazy college student with really no worries at all.

Then December of my junior year rolled around. Looking back on it I can remember the exact date and what I was doing when the symptoms of diabetes (of which I was completely clueless) began arising. I was in my friend Lauren Schwartze's basement with my borther and some other friends. My friend John had just gotten back from Australia and was showing us pictures. The only thing was I was constantly thirsty. I had to have had 4 gatorades in 35 minutes, and I just wasn't getting any less thirsty. But I just shrugged it off as me getting the flu or something like that.

Remember my father? The research endocrinologist? Yeah, diabetes is right up his alley. He nailed it in early January but didn't force me to get it checked out. I didn't want to do. I didn't want him to be right. I wanted to look past it as if that would make it better.