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Hi. My name is Jake, and I'm going to tell you about a time where I proved to myself
that I was stronger than I had ever known. When I was eight years old, I was diagnosed
with Type I diabetes. Now, I had no idea, at eight years old, what that disease even
was. I was not feeling well for a couple weeks.
I was going to the bathroom many times during the night and eating insane amounts of food
at meals, that my mom and dad began to wonder, you know, What's going on? Is he okay?
So they took me to the doctor. And the doctor told me after some blood tests, and my whole
they told everyone that I had Type I diabetes. And it was very hard because no one knew what
that was. We didn't know how I got it. We had no family history of Type I diabetes.
We were just so confused. And I was sent to the hospital for a week.
I was poked and prodded and hooked up to machines and given so many shots. And I just it was
such a stressful, overwhelming time. And I had so many questions, like Is this forever?
Is there going to be a cure? You know, is this even real? I didn't even know how to
pronounce the name of the disease that I had been given.
There was just so much going on all at once for me, and I was only eight years old. So
it was a very stressful, difficult time. But I'm here to tell you, ten years later, that
it's going to be it gets better. You're stronger than you think you are. You're going to do
you're going to make it through. You're going to do everything you thought you could do.
You're going to be able to do it, still, even if you have Type I diabetes.
Growing up having the disease, you know, maybe sometimes people would think, Oh, you know,
Jake can't play for too long. His blood sugar is going to go low. And you know, that's not
true. I have the knowledge now that I know that I need to eat a little snack before I
play, and then I can play just along with everybody else. It's not that big of an issue.
And sometimes I felt uncomfortable when I'd have to pull out a little pack of crackers
in the middle of the FCAT and I would have to eat them because my little alarm on my
watch was beeping that my mom had set. But those uncomfortable times started to get,
you know, less and less, and I started to feel more comfortable and confident in myself.
And diabetes is just it's part of who I am, but it doesn't it's not everything. I can
still I get you know, I study hard. I get good grades. It doesn't control every aspect
of my life. It's something I have to live with. It's not something that is a burden.
And all you have to do, really, to prove to yourself, just like I did to me, to myself
all you have to do is stay strong. You have to never give up. You can't let it get the
best of you. When you have those nights and I have them too where your sugar is 500 and
you feel like throwing up, you feel like you're dying, like this is the end, this is the end
for me it happens to me still it's going to be okay. You're going to get your sugar back
down. You're going to start feeling normal. You're not going to feel nauseous anymore.
It's going to be okay. And those days where sometimes I really can't
I keep going low; what's going on? You're going to get back on track. It's going to
be all right. You know, I promise you that I'm living proof that, ten years later, diabetes
didn't do anything more to me than someone without it could would have lived with. And
you know, all you have to do is keep it in your head and in your heart that you know
that everything will be okay if you stay strong. And I know you can do it. Thank you.