College has already been set to be one of the most rigorous experiences of the many trials and tribulations we face in early adulthood. The follow up question is, what could make my life any harder? How about having diabetes while balancing the stressful components of college? It’s pretty much safe to say that college isn’t the most accommodating place if you have some sort of ailment, be it mental, physical, social, or quite possibly a combination of the sort. What you won’t know until you get to college is how much of a pain the problems caused by diabetes can truly become, like having to go mass grocery shopping with only two weeks of school left or blacking out in the middle of class and wondering if people will ever not see you on the ground going through shock. Try having people tell you that there’s no way you’re diabetic and that you just have hypoglycemia. Diabetes isn’t handled by just completing a list of things; it’s complex and creates a very complicated lifestyle.
1.4 million Americans are diagnosed with diabetes every year and as of 2012, 86 million Americans age 20 and older have prediabetes. About 208,000 Americans under age 20 are estimated to have been diagnosed with diabetes. Those are college-aged people who have to make drastic changes during such a stressful time in their lives. On top of all of that, having diabetes or any sort of health issue is expensive. According to the American Diabetes Association, after adjusting for population age and sex differences, average medical expenditures among people diagnosed with diabetes were 2.3 times higher than what expenditures would have been in the absence of diabetes. Click on this link for more information about diabetes-related statistics: http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/#sthash.vLTXlGDc.dpuf
So, what’s it like having prediabetes or diabetes on a college campus? For me personally, it’s absolutely horrid. I was diagnosed with borderline diabetes the summer before I came to college. Diabetes is something I really had to try to work hard to avoid. I knew even before the doctor told me because my body felt off. Throughout the summer, I worked harder to beat it. However, soon after I came to college, things spiraled rapidly out of control. I don’t get the adequate nutrition I have available at home, so I’m eating junk if it isn’t frozen. The dining hall’s food is insufficient. In all truth, it makes me sicker. I’m not eating enough (big girl, big eater) and people tend to misdiagnose me. The first time I blacked out, I was presenting a project in front of the class. The nurse was called and she told me I had nothing more than an anxiety attack. I have anxiety and a diabetic fainting spell doesn’t even correlate. I’ve been told to eat better, but as a freshman without a car, I ponder upon how I can obtain better food. Because it is not on record that I have borderline diabetes, people refuse to consider that I have it. My emergency information that’s provided in the case that I pass out has yet to be used. During the three times I’ve passed out, no one was contacted. I was simply given a snack and advised to make sure I eat next time or to eat better.
So, how do students survive college with diabetes of any form? How do we thrive as college students and as students with diabetes? What would make life easier without feeding us the same mediocre nonsense we all go through the same way? It’s a hard thing to conquer and it makes college life even more stressful than it already is.