In the spring I prepared my plot in a community garden. I was eager to plant hot peppers, Swiss chard, tomatoes, and at my son’s request, even jack’o lantern pumpkins. I wanted to try baby watermelons, too. But gardening proved slow this year in Michigan. It rained so much in late spring that I couldn’t plant anything until...

In an outdated and dimly lit clinic on Beverly Avenue in Los Angeles, a medical assistant tested my vitals and told me to pee in a cup.  I was a busy architectural intern and had no time for this.  I had an end of the day deadline at work, but I’d left my office and come to the urgent care clinic because I couldn’t take the...

Diabetes, like any chronic disease, can come with constant worry, concern, and even a sense of loss.  You can find yourself mourning for the life you thought you would be leading. In my case, I was mourning a particular identity: my baking identity. I had been the girl who always offered to bring dessert to get-togethers and office...

When I was eight I spent a lazy Saturday lying on my front porch watching a spider spinning his web across the threshold. He climbed up the frame a foot or so and dropped, catching the breeze across to the other side, glimmering silk flowing out behind him. Dropping to the bottom, he attached another strand and then climbed back up, ’til...

On Monday, September 14, 2009, I noticed my 14-month-old son Nate had been thirsty all day.  He cried a little bit more than usual and stood at the fridge, pointing until I got him a drink.  I thought he was pretty darn smart.  He was only a baby and yet he knew what he wanted and where to get it. That night he cried on and off during...

Brenda Novak, mother of five and best-selling author, noticed her youngest son Thad was showing symptoms of diabetes when he was only five-years-old. Soon thereafter he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Learning how to give her son the best possible care wasn’t enough for Brenda, and so she decided to fight diabetes by starting...

If 12 years ago someone had given me a crystal ball and shown me a glimpse of my future,  I don’t think the biggest surprise would be that I have type 1 diabetes, or that I eat a vegan, gluten-free diet.  The biggest surprise, I think, would be how much happier and healthier I am now, despite the challenges I have encountered. Adaptation...

In the years between early childhood and high adolescence, I spent a lot of time on my bicycle. I loved facing into a breeze with my hair blowing back, pushing off, and standing on the pedals to climb a hill and then sitting for the downward coast. At dusk the neighborhood was quiet and I could hear the adhesive zip of my tires on the...

During the normal 120-day life span of the red blood cell, glucose molecules react with hemoglobin forming glycated hemoglobin.  A few decades ago researchers discovered that in individuals with poorly controlled diabetes, the quantities of these glycated hemoglobins are much higher than in healthy people. Once a hemoglobin molecule...

My older brother was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in the mid-nineties, when he was 14 and I was 11.   It was right around Christmas time and my brother had been sick with  what we thought was the flu.  He had been to the hospital for treatment, but was sent back home with directions to simply rest and get better.  My brother remembers...