My mom knew something was wrong with me. We got to the general practitioner, he puts a stethoscope on my back and smells my breath. Then he says, “We need to get him to hospital NOW.”
Turns out my blood sugar was dangerously high, and my breath smelled like acetone — a sign of diabetic ketoacidosis. I was 14 years old and didn’t even know what diabetes was.
The ride to the hospital was quiet, except for my mom’s fingers tapping on the steering wheel like a ticking clock. She was holding it together, but I could see the panic behind her eyes. I was sweating, my stomach felt twisted, and I was too tired to even ask questions.
Once we got there, the nurses moved fast. IVs, monitors, questions — everything blurred together. One nurse asked me if I remembered what I had eaten that day. “Some cereal, a soda… maybe some cookies,” I mumbled. She just nodded and gave me a look that wasn’t judgmental, just deeply sad.
The next few days were rough. I was in ICU, hooked up to machines, hearing words like “insulin,” “glucose,” and “complications” tossed around.
But what hit hardest wasn’t the diagnosis. It was the look on my mom’s face when the doctor told her that if we’d waited just one more day, I might not have made it.
That kind of moment slices into your life and rearranges it. You’re one person before, and someone else after. The worst part? I hadn’t seen it coming. I’d just been tired and thirsty all the time. I figured it was school stress or maybe a flu.
After they stabilized me, I was sent home with a kit. Blood sugar monitor, insulin pens, charts, carb-counting guides. My mom sat beside me the first night home, reading everything, trying to learn. She made notes in the margins and labeled our fridge. I wanted to push it all away, pretend nothing had changed.
But everything had.
Middle school kids don’t know what to do with someone who suddenly needs to check their blood and inject themselves during lunch. At first, they were curious. Then, a few jokes started. Nothing too harsh, but enough to make me feel different. I hated being different.
My best friend at the time, Theo, tried to be supportive. But even he didn’t get it. He’d still offer me gummy worms and then say, “Oh wait, you can’t have this, right?” with that awkward half-laugh.
I started pulling back. Less lunchroom talk, more bathroom breaks alone. I felt like my body had betrayed me, and no one else could really understand.
Except for one person.
A few months after the diagnosis, my mom signed me up for a local support group for teens with chronic conditions. I didn’t want to go. I told her I didn’t need a circle of people sharing sad stories. She said, “Just try one session. That’s all I ask.”
I went. And that’s when I met Mira.
She walked in late, wearing a hoodie with paint smudges on it and mismatched sneakers. She plopped into a chair across from me, nodded once, and said, “So who here is tired of being treated like glass?” I laughed before I even realized it. Her honesty cut through the awkwardness in the room like a warm knife through cold butter.
Turns out, Mira had Crohn’s disease. She’d been through surgeries, hospital stays, diets, and more pills than I could name. But she didn’t seem fragile. She was bold, sarcastic, and somehow funny about everything.
After the session, she came over and asked if I liked old horror movies. I didn’t really, but I said yes anyway. We ended up watching one that weekend at her place. She had a cat named Noodles who liked to sit on your head, and her walls were covered in messy sketches and quotes in Sharpie.
Mira never asked too many questions about my diabetes. She just made room for it, like it was one more thing about me — not the only thing. We started hanging out more. She’d come to my house, help my mom cook carb-friendly meals, or we’d go walk around the park and make up stories about people we passed.
Slowly, I stopped hating my body.
The following year, Mira convinced me to join the art club. “You need a hobby that doesn’t involve poking yourself,” she said. I didn’t think I could draw, but she shoved a sketchpad in my hands anyway.
At first, I just doodled stuff. Comic book characters, robots, random shapes. Then one day, I sketched my insulin pen with wings like a rocket. Mira loved it.
Art became my outlet. Whenever I felt overwhelmed, I’d grab a pencil. Sometimes I drew comics where my pancreas was a lazy villain getting kicked out by the insulin hero. They made Mira laugh so hard she cried once.
Then came the twist.
It was late spring when Mira stopped answering texts. At first, I thought she was just having a rough week. Then I heard from another group member that she’d been admitted to the hospital again. I asked my mom to drive me there.
She looked smaller in the hospital bed. Pale, like someone had erased half her brightness. But when she saw me, she managed a weak smile. “Hey, you bring your sketchbook?” she whispered. I nodded, holding it up.
I stayed for hours, just sitting beside her, flipping pages. She told me she was tired this time. That the flare-up was worse than usual. But then she said something I’ll never forget. “Even if my body’s breaking down, it’s not the only thing about me. And it’s not the only thing about you either. Don’t forget that.”
Two weeks later, she passed away.
Her mom called me and asked if I wanted anything from her room. I asked for one of her sketches. She gave me a whole folder. In the middle of it was a drawing she’d made of me — holding a giant pen-syringe like a sword, standing on a mountain of sugar cubes. “You’re stronger than you think,” it said.
For a while, I was lost again.
I didn’t go to the group. I didn’t draw. I skipped a few insulin shots just to feel like I was in control again. But it didn’t help. All it did was make me feel worse, physically and mentally. One night, my mom sat me down and said, “I miss you. I miss you. Mira would hate to see you like this.”
That hit me. Hard.
I started drawing again. But this time, I wasn’t hiding behind cartoons. I drew Mira. I drew the hospital. I drew the fear and the anger, and then the light I saw in her. I poured it all out. My art teacher saw one of the pieces and asked if I wanted to submit to a local youth art show.
I hesitated. Then I said yes.
I submitted five pieces. One of them — the one of Mira and me sitting under a giant IV bag shaped like a tree — got selected for a feature wall. At the show, someone came up to me with tears in their eyes and said, “My daughter just got diagnosed with Crohn’s. Your drawing gave me hope.”
That’s when I realized something.
My pain, my story — it didn’t have to stay small. It could help people. It could mean something. Mira had given me that. My mom had fought for that. Even Theo, who later apologized and admitted he didn’t know how to act back then, came around and supported me.
By senior year of high school, I was holding small workshops at community centers for kids with chronic illnesses. Not to lecture, just to give them a space to draw, vent, laugh. We didn’t talk about medicine unless someone wanted to. Mostly, we talked about stuff like movies, music, and weird dreams. Like normal teens.
One boy, 12 years old, came up to me after a session and said, “I don’t feel like a freak anymore.” I held back tears and just fist-bumped him.
Now I’m 22.
I’m studying art therapy. I still carry that sketch of me with the insulin sword everywhere. I also still check my sugar, take my insulin, and eat boring cereal sometimes. But I don’t resent it anymore.
Because now I know — we don’t get to choose what life hands us, but we do get to choose what we do with it.
Mira showed me that strength isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s in the quiet way someone walks into a room and makes you feel like you belong. Sometimes it’s in holding on when your body wants to give up. Sometimes, it’s in a sketch that says, “You’re stronger than you think.”
If you’re reading this and going through something — illness, grief, loneliness — I hope you know: you’re not alone. Your story matters. And one day, it might be the thing that helps someone else keep going.
So don’t hide your pain. Transform it.
Because the day everything changed for me wasn’t the day I was diagnosed.
It was the day I realized I could turn it into something beautiful.
If this story touched you, or if you know someone who needs to hear it, share it. You never know whose life you might change just by letting them know they’re not alone. Hit like if you believe strength comes in all forms.
