I'm not a doctor, I'm just a diabetic with a syringe.

Everyday I am reminded of numbers and carbs. I watch what I put in my mouth and I care way too much about if the waiter really did bring me Diet Coke. I crack diabetic jokes left and right, and cringe when the old man comes on tv to talk about dia-beet-us. I'm still waiting for the diabetes meme of "We won't let dia-beat-us." I was diagnosed with type 1 (juvenile) diabetes when I was 12 years old. I've witnessed MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter all blow up. I'm your typical college-going, sorority-loving, dance team-performing girl with a dysfunctional pancreas.

I've been contemplating about writing  for months now. Ever since I saw Kerri Sparling, author of Six Until Me, speak at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) Type 1 Now conference I have wanted to start writing. Today I decided it is time to start. I was sitting at the Clinical Pathology Labs and saw a little girl no older than six waiting with her parents, I knew she was there to get blood work done, but didn't know if she was diabetic or not. I watched as her parents took her back and she started crying, she started screaming. The kind of screams that break your heart and you just know that she hates what is happening to her. It made me stop and think about all of the young diabetic I have met. The little babies, the toddlers, the young girls I have mentored at diabetes camp in the past. Here was this young girl getting blood drawn probably the first time in her life, and there are millions of children younger than her who go through the same procedures on a monthly basis. The thought gnawed at me; "this is bravery." Bravery does not come with age, and it definitely doesn't come with practice, but I have witnessed bravery in the youngest of hearts.

 "To the todays and the tomorrows"