Michelle Kowalski

I keep saying that my new diagnosis doesn't change anything, but it does. It just does. I can't put my finger on it, and many of the things that are going through my mind as being "worse" than having type 2 are likely just unfounded fears.

I can be equally rational with myself and hysterical at the same time when thinking about the differences between type 1 and type 2. It's taken me until today--that's four days--to really get out of that funk I was in since Monday. I haven't even had a chance to tell my parents yet.

When I told my sister this morning about the switch from type 2 to type 1, she gasped and said, "That's the worst kind, right?"

I didn't exactly know how to respond, because any kind of diabetes is bad and I didn't want to worry her unnecessarily, but in my mind, yes, it sort of is the worst kind.

My management method won't change, but my techniques and my thinking certainly will. There have been plenty of times that I've had a high blood sugar and thought I didn't need to correct with insulin because I was operating under the impression that my body made its own insulin. I have to watch more carefully now knowing that my body won't compensate on its own.

Maybe I'm making a much bigger deal out of this than it really is. Maybe that's why I (an information junkie) feel like I had to pry the words "I would vote for latent type 1--very likely autoimmune in nature" out of my endo--because at this point it really is just a label. Right?