Max Dubree

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I was diagnosed with type 1 in August 2006 at the age of 7. After a week of constant thirst and just not acting like myself my mom just had a sixth sense that my sugar wasn’t right. She purchased a cheap glucose monitor, checked my sugar and it would not register, just said high. To the ER we went. Sure enough it was extremely high so to Kosairs' Children’s Hospital we went for two days. On the third day I went to school  just like I had before I was diagnosed…I just had to now take shots and prick fingers. I was lucky because my mom taught at the same school I attended so everyone already knew what was going on. Plus we had a really cool school nurse, Jeannie King, who I knew would take great care of me. I even played in a soccer match that Friday after coming home on Tuesday. Life as I knew it changed but it really didn’t!

Sixteen years I have been T1D, that means my mom and dad have lived the T1D life too. I know they have had more sleepless nights over it than I. However, from day one our mindset was we are controlling this it will not control us. I’ve gone from pricking fingers several times a day to a continuous glucose monitor. I’ve gone from drawing insulin with a syringe to insulin pens. I don’t pump; my decision. My way of feeling in control. Sixteen years has also seen me go from a second grader to a college graduate; to an employee, and to a homeowner. It’s because of the fortitude I have learned being T1D that these sixteen years have been pretty darn great!