I have been diabetic for about 5 years now and it is not getting any easier.

I was diagnosed in 2004 going into my freshman year of highschool. My first bad experience with diabetes in school was not with another student but with a teacher.

It was about the third week into school, and at this point only my teachers knew that i was diabetic. I wanted to keep my diabetes under the radar from my friends and class mates, because i thought they would judge me or act differently.

So i head downstairs to the cafateria to get a sticky bun. OK, first of all, they are bad for anyone and I dont recommend eating them, but I was new to diabetes and still hanging on to old eating habits.

As i am walking upstairs my teacher walks by me. He says to me "you cant eat that, dont you know better?" He took the sticky bun away from me and threw it out.

After that I thought for sure I could not tell anyone about my diabetes, because I feared that everyone would treat me that way. It took me about a year or two to tell my best friend, who also had diabetes, that I too had it.

After that I was able to tell anyone. The most important thing is to let things out and not to hold them inside. Almost everyone in my school now knows that I have diabetes.

I am now confident to test my blood suger in class without people staring -- well, thats not true: my one friend always looks at my meter to make sure my blood suger is in range.

So if you are diabetic and school is tough for you because people have the wrong concept of diabetes, just give them a little bio of diabetes.

Go Teach Them,

Matt