[SugarLife]

In the youth hospital they had a specialised diabetes team. When you made an appointment they would schedule endo, diabetes nurse and dietist in one block, so you only had to come once and see them all (this was great for parents, too, as they would have had to take time off from work etc., though I soon went by myself, as I was 12 when I was Dx-ed).

They payed a lot of attention to how I was coping with diabetes, like how things were at school etc. They adviced my mother to let all my teachers know and tell them that I should always have permission to eat in class and to go to the bathroom when needed. They had special teen's meetings that were educational and helped you get in touch with other young diabetics.

In the methods they used, they used a lot of pictures to explain what they meant, such as a diagram showing a human body in which there were small sugarcubes (glucose) and keys that opened the cells for them (insulin), the cells pictured with little doors that were unlocked by the keys. Another body was shown in which there were only a few keys left and a lot of sugarcubes piling up - this was to explain what diabetes was. Then they would explain that through injections the body was provided with keys again and the sugarcubes could enter the cells and I would have more energy! The pictures had bright colours and were on posters that hang in the room, so I would never forget how these basics worked and why I was there.

One thing that I didn't like very much was that the doctor said, on my first appointment: 'You don't have a disease, your body has a defect.' He meant to say that I shouldn't think of myself as being sick, but as someone who's body needed some help, but to me he was saying that I wasn't whole, that I lacked perfection (and I was a perfectionist then even more than I am now).

I don't know how they explained things to younger children, because some of the diagrams, e.g. of how Mixtard vs. Insulatard and Actrapid (comparable to Lantus and NovoRapid, which are much better for most people) worked, would have been too difficult for them.

The whole (youth) hospital was painted in bright colours (some calm colours, too, but a lot of bright things), there were toys in the waiting rooms, it was all very child-friendly. This made me feel welcome.

They taught me to inject by showing me how they did it on me once, then taught me how to do it myself without actually injecting and the next morning I had to do it by myself. No oranges or anything, because they said those felt different from a human body anyway. It worked great, I was really scared the first time and took ages before I would inject, but when I saw how easy it actually was, all went well. Later I developed a needle phobia, but that's another story.

After some time (they took things one step at a time) they gave me a schedule with two hands and a human body, where I could mark where I had injected or taken blood for a test. This helped me spread those. When one was full (and I had used all the different spots) I could start with a new one.

Well, this was all I could think upon for now - it's a bit of a mishmash, as I was thinking 'out loud', I hope it still helps.