I’ve had time to reflect…

I remember 7th grade. I was 12 years old, I had just begun middle school, and the size of my class had increased drastically. Where before my hand was held and my decisions guided, I was now a number- a name on a medical sheet, meticulously filed away. It was the year we decided that I was more than capable of managing my own blood sugar, of being away from the nurse’s office and being able to test in class. It was the year administration blatantly refused, the year they told me that the life I had to live was a threat to other students. It was the year my new school principal told my mother “If my daughter saw someone doing that in class and told me about it, I would be in to administration right away to complain!” This, about the act of testing my blood sugar.

It was the first year I can ever recall feeling inadequate, the first year I ever felt like I wasn’t good enough. But we fought. And this time when I say we, I mean my mother… who never ever gave up, and 5 months later, I was allowed. Allowed to manage the life I had not asked for, and in the presence of others. I felt then that the fight was long, that it did not end before it had bruised my confidence, but I also felt hope. The hope that maybe our fight would make someone else’s easier.

So, when I look back and reflect on this day… I feel that hope again, and I am thankful. I look at the beginning of our fight for coverage of my CGMS, just 2 and a half months ago- how I poured everything into the letter I wrote for the second appeal, and still received the dreaded word: DENIED. But now here I am today, with the fantastic news that I have been approved on my mind, and the feeling that this success is part of something bigger than my own life. Barack Obama has been elected president, the streets of my college campus have been flooded with students- all cheering for a victory, all cheering for change. Today I know that my fight was made easier by all of you who have fought and won before me.  I have come to believe now, more than ever, in the power each person possesses to fight for and achieve change. Insurance companies have already begun to change their policies regarding coverage of CGMS’s, and I believe it is in large part because of the strength and perseverance of the diabetes community in demanding the lives that we deserve. Today I see in others a passion I have not seen before in my short life, I look back at all the changes I have seen through my own and say with confidence that this is only the beginning.