Hello World!

Welcome to my page! 2021 has been quite the year; A never ending global pandemic and a doctors call I will never forget…

I was diagnosed with Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults (LADA, also known as Type 1.5 diabetes) at 28 years old following a routine annual physical. It was the additional bloodwork required by an insurance incentive that uncovered my disease and I could not be more thankful. Shout out to @BlueCrossBlueShield. Sure, I would have eventually discovered my LADA but the circumstances would have been much, much worse.

As my PCP reviewed my bloodwork with me over the phone, I froze. Thoughts raced through my mind, Wait…what? Are you looking at the correct patient chart? I had a big lunch before the bloodwork, it must be the sandwich and chocolate chip cookie throwing off my numbers. How can something like this happen to me? I thought I was “healthy”? I quickly learned that one heavy meal does not affect your A1C and mine was over 14% at the time of diagnosis (!!!!!!).

Helpful context: An A1C is a three month average of your blood sugar levels. A normal A1C for a non-diabetic is under 5.7%.

Walking around with an A1C over 14% meant that I must have been experiencing some symptoms, no? The short answer is yes, of course. However, I never would have thought that I had diabetes. That seemed like a crazy Google search result that couldn’t possibly be true. I quickly rushed to the Diabetes section at Barnes & Nobles (yes, there is an entire section!) to purchase as many books as possible to become an “expert” on what my body had been experiencing over the last few months:

• Frequent urination
• Quench of thirst
• Unexplained weight loss
• Stomach/digestive issues
• Stubborn Yeast Infection

I innocently thought it was the Summer heat causing the increased intake of water. Plus it made sense, if you drink more water you obviously would need to wake up in the middle of the night multiple times to use the bathroom!?! My new Pilates and Peloton workout routine was shedding off the quarantine pounds I may have gained!?! See.. it all made sense, until it didn’t. Until all the symptoms together were a very clear, and obvious diagnosis.

It has been 5 months since I learned of my diagnosis and started managing my new routine. I think the hardest part so far has been the immediate health and life adjustments. I was living a healthy life before knowing my fate but now am even more intentional and thoughtful of many day-to-day choices that I used to never even think about. It can be exhausting. I am unbelievably lucky and fortunate to have a husband who has been incredibly supportive as we navigate managing my health and our life together.

This page is not meant to be a pity party and let me make clear that I am certainly not pretending to be a doctor or a health professional of any kind. I am simply sharing my journey to joy with latent autoimmune diabetes.

-mn