After feeling dead for the past three weeks, I finally felt back to my old self.  During fourth grade history in the year 2007, my teacher, Mrs. Weisgerber received a call from the office saying that my mom was at the school to pick me up for a doctor’s appointment.  It was around 10 a.m., and I was confused as to why I had an appointment.  I packed up my backpack and walked downstairs to the office.  When I saw my mom, I looked at her with confusion and asked her why I had an appointment. She responded by asking me how I was feeling.  “I’m feeling great! A lot better than what I have for the past few weeks,” I told her.  She just smiled and started the car.

The drive to the clinic wasn’t anything special. We didn’t have to wait long before being taken back to the room. When the nurse practitioner, Paula, came in she explained to me about blood glucose and told me that she was going to prick my finger with a tiny needle.  When there was blood on the tip of my finger, she held out a glucose meter and took the blood. My blood glucose was 594.  Paula called Toledo hospital right away, saying I was on my way. There was this extreme panic in everyone around me like I was frozen, and everything around me was going 100 miles a minute.  Of course, being a nine-year-old, I didn’t really understand what was wrong.  Paula then asked, “Do you want to go in the ambulance or have Mom take you?”

“I’ll have my mom take me,” I told her. 

Before going to Toledo, we met up with my dad at home.  Mom rushed me to pack some over nightclothes while she rushed around calling people.  My grandparents arrived just before we were about to leave, so they could be there when my sister, Achsa, stepped off the bus.  On our way to Toledo my dad was driving; mom was sat on the passenger side, and I sat in the back playing Mario Kart on my pink DS.

Once we arrived at Toledo Children’s Hospital, a very nice nurse asked me many questions I didn’t know how to answer.  After walking down a long hall, we finally reached to the room I was supposed to stay in.  The theme was under the sea. The walls were painted a deep blue and decorated with fish and seaweed.  It was one of the newer rooms.  I was getting situated when another nurse walked in and told me I had to get an IV.  At first she put it in my left hand but couldn’t find a vein, so she switched to my right hand. ‘I wonder if this is her first time doing this,’ I thought.  Yet again she could not find a vein, even after she moved the needle back and forth, took it out, put it back in, and wiggled it around more.  In all honesty it tickled, there was a little discomfort but not much. ‘Do I not have any veins?  Why can’t she find my vein?’  Eventually, after trying the left hand again, she finally found a vein.  After that she did some blood work and poked my finger with a small needle.  When she left, my doctor, Mark Watkins, came into the room, introduced himself, and sat down in a chair next to my bed to explain why I was in the hospital.  He did most of the talking with few comments from my parents. “How are you feeling, Hannah?” he asked me.  At this point I was a little overwhelmed by all the information he just threw at me. 

“Fine,” I told him, keeping my conversing short. 
“Do you have any questions about what I just told you?” he asked.
“Am I going to die?” I asked. 
He slightly chuckled, “How old are you?”
“Nine,” I told him with small pride. 
He smiled and told me, “You can live for a long time as long as you do everything you are supposed to. You’ll be 109 before you die!” he added.

“Can it be 110 since I’m almost 10?” I asked laughing a little.  As the day went on, a nurse came in and told me that there was a young boy coming in and that I had to switch rooms because they can’t put a boy and girl together. The next room I stayed in I roomed with this girl, and she had her family there. They were a very loud family, and since there were quite a few of them in this small room, it seemed very crowded. Eventually, they all left, and my dad headed home to be with my sister.  Before bed a nurse came in to poke my finger to check my blood glucose, take some blood, and whatever else needed to be done before letting me sleep.  The first night was rough because my mom decided that she was going to sleep in the bed with me.  Hospital beds are so much smaller than anyone thinks. Then I was woken up at three in the morning because the nurses needed to do more testing. About eight a.m. nurses woke me up again to get my blood glucose checked and to have breakfast.  Later that morning the other girl in the room had been discharged and left.  After that a nutritionist came in and started telling me about what I needed to do for food and insulin. “Now every time you eat, you are going to have to count your carbohydrates,” she said.  She told me about carbohydrates and the necessary knowledge of eating for diabetics.  After she left, I was moved to yet another room. This time I had a roommate who was quite nice.  We shared our stories of why we were there, and I learned that she had been skateboarding at her friends and was hit by a car and broke her leg.  A few hours later, her mom came in and said they had discharged her, so she left. When my cousin Claire visited me that night, she gave me a homemade card and a plastic little dollhouse that had plastic tiny people to play with.  Then the usual routine happened again that night before bed, and then around 3a.m. a young girl was brought into the room.  From the commotion I had woken up. The nurse saw and said, “If you can wait until I get back, I can check your glucose now.”  Soon the nurse came back to poke my finger and take my blood.  Later that morning I met the young girl and found out she had her tonsils taken out.  All she would do was cry, and it was quite awful.  Finally, after a whole day of listening to her cry, I was able to go home.  I stayed in the hospital for three days. I slept the whole car ride home, and Mom kept saying just how happy she was to be going home. Being a diabetic isn’t easy, and it takes so much responsibility.  I know I can make it through this life if I just do what I need to do.