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How did you feel when you (or a loved one) were first diagnosed? Post your response here!
From the moment our experts heard the words "You have diabetes," their worlds changed. See how they dealt with the diagnosis in those first minutes. Then click on the link above to tell us about your reaction.
Expert Diabetes Patient and Medical Professional Dr. Bill Quick:
The doctor mentioned in passing that I had "trace glucosuria". Since I've got a family history of diabetes, and had been fasting (except water) for way too many hours, it wasn't hard to put two plus two together. Sure, I have had symptoms. And like everyone else, I had enough excuses that I didn't have to think of the big D as the reason why. So, Steph (who's a diabetes nurse educator) and I stopped at our friendly chain drugstore on the way out of town, and bought an A1c test-at-home kit, and a meter and strips. And, while I was driving north from NJ to Massachusetts, she doublechecked the instructions, and stabbed my fingers (more than once!) for A1c and BG. My A1c was 11.1 (high in anyone's book) and the initial BG was 293. Subsequent rechecks overnight have continued in the 200's. Oh well. Such is life.
Expert Diabetes Patient David Mendosa:
I learned that I had type 2 diabetes in February 1994, when I went to the VA Clinic in Santa Barbara, California, for a pain in my side. After giving me a blood test, a doctor there asked me, “Has anybody ever told you that you have diabetes?” Nobody had even hinted that I might have diabetes. I didn’t know the first thing about it. Nobody in my family had diabetes, and I had never met anyone who told me they had it. The diagnosis of diabetes is scary for many people. These people get obsessed with a fear of complications. Other people deny the diagnosis. They act as if they never heard of it. My reaction to my diagnosis of diabetes was different. I was determined to learn everything I could about it. This middle way comes naturally to me because of what I do for a living. I write. At the time I was a writer and editor of a business magazine. But learning and writing about diabetes quickly became even more interesting to me than learning and writing about business. As I learned more about diabetes I naturally wanted to share what I learned. Soon, I stopped writing about business so I could write only about diabetes.

Expert Patient Amy Tenderich
On May 21, 2003, I was admitted to the hospital with a blood glucose level of 748. Apparently, I was close to a diabetic coma, although I mainly felt exhausted and "fuzzy." After a horrrible night of being re-hydrated via IV, and woken every 20 minutes for a vital-signs check, plus every 2 hours for insulin shots, I'd had exactly NO sleep and a severe case of 'moon face" -– which scared the hell out of me, because my father had exactly the same moon face when I visited him in the hospital a few months before he died. They worked so hard at bringing my BG levels down that I had an ugly low at 6:30am, in which I was nearly incapable of pushing the 'nurse" button. It was an ugly week all around. In the early morning hours, a pasty woman doctor with scraggly hair made a mock motion of anointing me with holy water in my hospital bed as she declared, 'you are now a Diabetic." She was trying to make light of the situation, of course, but I was horrified. In the weeks thereafter, I fast-forwarded through the typical stages: denial, isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I remember spending one whole day on the couch crying, and then in the evening, picking myself up and setting myself in front of the computer to start figuring this thing out. Obviously, I haven't stopped since. Amy's work also appears at www.diabetesmine.com.
Expert Diabetes Patient Gretchen Becker:
Depressed.
Expert Patient Ginger:
I remember thinking two particular things at the age of 13 years old when I was diagnosed. First, I asked my doctor if I was going to die because I had no idea what diabetes really was. Then, after she told me "no," I wondered and terrified myself because for some reason in my imagination diabetes was going to make me look funny, perhaps alter my body in odd ways --in the end, I really just had absolutely no idea what this disease meant.
Kim Benjet, has a son with diabetes:
I felt like I was punched in the stomach and wanted to scream but could not because I didn’t want to terrify my four year old. I thought that if my child was diagnosed with a chronic condition I would see a slew of specialists to verify the diagnosis, but the urine screen in the pediatrician’s office for what I thought was a urinary tract infection revealed diabetes and we were directed to our Children’s Hospital. The diagnosis of type 1 diabetes with ketones present is a medical emergency, I soon learned. My adrenalin surged -- thank God for that adrenalin, because it got me through the next week of sleepless nights. From the pediatrician’s office, we went immediately to the hospital and the roller coaster began. Josh whimpered as he received his first shot, and I cried silently for him. The series of events is etched in my mind, and I still get a shaky feeling as I type about it. But recently I was amazed to hear from Josh that he doesn’t remember the day he was diagnosed. I’m glad it’s not etched in his mind as a traumatic memory. I’ve written about it before but the question that haunted me the early weeks was “what didn’t I know about the disease? What was I missing?” There began my pursuit for information about how diabetes would affect my son and what we could do about it.