Diabetes influences what you eat, what you do and who you are. It is a serious disease caused by the body’s inability to produce or properly use insulin, an important hormone that provides energy needed for our daily lives. It affects 20 million people in the U.S. alone, with one-third of this number remaining undiagnosed. Approximately 9.1 million women are living with diabetes. 

Kerri Morrone is one of these women Diagnosed as a child with the extremely rare Type 1(there are three types) in which the body cannot produce insulin at all. She is now an influential medical blogger who has created a community for diabetics all over the world. Read her experience with this emotional disease.

Living with Diabetes
Type 1 diabetes isn’t a “take one pill and call me in the morning” sort of disease; there is so much involved in the proper management of it. I’ve been living with this condition for over 21 years, but I still remember pressing the needle against the unfeeling skin of an orange just after I was diagnosed, practicing how to give my shot as I sat at a table while my parents spoke with the specialist. "The skin of an orange is just like the skin of a human being. Once you practice enough, you'll barely feel a thing." The pinchy tip of the needle darted in and out of the dimples of the orange, and the doctors were right: I didn't feel anything - until that needle went in to me.  And for the past two decades, the pinch of the needle has become part of my daily routine.

In my teenage years, the control of my diabetes became more my responsibility than that of my parents that I found myself rebelling against the constraints of my condition. I felt so overwhelmed and alone. My frustration with life was taken out on the management of my disease.

It took a letter from my endocrinologist to rip me from my self-destructive path. I opened the envelope and skimmed along, coming to a paragraph that was hand-written in that curly, familiar script of my doctor.  “Kerri is going through some difficult times at the moment.  She spent most of her time in my office on the verge of tears.  I am concerned.”  Her words were a cold hand on my hot and tear-streaked face.  I needed to gain control. At that moment, I was at the bottom of the hill.