Greetings, My name is Marc Bollinger and I currently live in Lubbock, Texas. I’m on my final semester at Texas Tech University earning a degree in Management Information Systems. I’d like to share with you my story of becoming a diabetic. I find that reading stories of others who have contracted the disease makes it that much easier to cope and realize that you ARE NOT ALONE!

I was diagnosed with Type I Insulin Dependent Diabetes on February, 28th in 2003. The events leading up to this diagnosis is what I’d like to share with you.

Sometime after the New Year came upon me, I realized that I began to have unusual cravings for soft drinks. At the time I didn’t think anything of it, naturally, so I began to drink 5 to 6 Coke’s a day along with eating an extreme amount of fast food. To this day, I almost want to place the blame on McDonald’s for offering me a 42oz drink for $0.42, as it was just an excuse to go there almost everyday. Being a college student, you tend to ignore diet and concentrate on saving that extra $0.10 somewhere. I found myself visiting the local campus convenience store on the way to class, work, and the library filling up a tall cup of soda. I just couldn’t understand why I was so thirsty, and then it hit me. Lubbock is always extremely dry during the winter. Typically, we see humidity levels below 30% for the majority of the winter months. Knowing this, I just thought to myself that it was just my body being dried out. I noticed that my mouth would get extremely dry every morning, to the point that I could barely breathe out of my mouth. I would wake up every morning and have about 12 oz of apple juice (my absolute favorite thing to drink) to “Get me going.” I noticed that as the days went by, it became a habit of mine to always have a drink in my hand or next to me on the desk. Everywhere I went I had a drink with me.

The thirst was only the beginning….
I took my fiancée, Jodi, to Cloudcroft, New Mexico (small mountain town) for Valentine’s Day. We stayed in a cabin up in the mountains and enjoyed the beautiful weather and temperatures. While I was up there I started to notice that I seemed to always be short of breath. Again, not knowing anything about the diabetes, I tried to associate this with something. Then it came to me! We were up in the mountains, so elevation decreases the amount of oxygen in the air! Bingo! That must be it; little did I know I was dead wrong. We were laying in bed one night while on this get-a-way and Jodi noticed that my love-handles and “beer” belly disappeared. I didn’t really notice it myself, but you know how women can spot things like that from a mile away. Again, not knowing anything about the diabetes, I tried to associate. Jodi and I did start working out every other day or so during January. I was excited about the weight loss, thinking that wow! This exercise stuff really works.



Several weeks later….
I work for the Teaching Learning and Technology Center on campus as a programmer for the web development team. On Monday, February 24 I went to work around 10am. I felt just fine when I arrived, but only a few hours later I all of a sudden got extremely dizzy to the point where I couldn’t see the monitor 2’ in front of me. Not knowing what was causing this, I decided to come home. I literally fell in bed once I walked in the door feeling horrible. I called my fiancé and asked her to come by. She looked at me and could tell that something was definitely wrong. She immediately called up the medical facilities located here on campus to schedule an appointment for me to come in that afternoon. In the meantime, I was getting extremely nauseous. I remember thinking to myself, “Oh great, I know I should have got the flu shot this year.” I was extremely worried that the flu found a place in my body to call home, I felt that bad. I finally made it through the afternoon and arrived at the appointment Jodi scheduled for me. I could barely sit in the chair thinking I was ready to hurl at any moment. They quickly called my name and took me back to see the doctor. The nurse gave me the typical, measure my height, weight, and blood pressure routine. I remember vividly stepping on the scale and seeing 120 on the read out. When the nurse asked me, “What does it say,” I remember replying, “Well, it says 120 but I don’t think your scale is accurate.” She ignored that reply obviously, and wrote down the 120 on the chart. You must understand that two months ago I was 145; this is why I was so shocked to see this read-out. The doctor made his way in fairly quickly (surprising eh?) and gave me the typical check-up. He asked me the symptoms I was having, and I replied, “Well, I’m nauseous, dizzy, and have a slight headache.” He immediately looked up my nasal passages and delivered the bad news, “You have a sinus infection.” I was upset, because I know how nasty those can get and can make you feel horrible for a long period of time. He told me the best thing to do was to take over-the-counter Sudafed and get rest. Before he left, I tried to explain my dizziness issue. I told him that I could no longer read the poster hanging on the wall behind him. He said it was related to the sinus draining in my ears, which would send my body into an imbalance, much like you get when one ear pops before the other. It sounded convincing to me at the time, so I came home and started on the Sudafed and sleep routine.



Tuesday…
I woke up, rolled out of bed and began my morning routine of making a big pot of coffee, taking a shower, and eating breakfast. One thing was different about this Tuesday morning though, I couldn’t focus on anything. I seemed to not have any depth perception of any kind. I was grabbing for things in the fridge that wasn’t what I thought I was grabbing for. I kept thinking how strange it was that my vision would start doing something like this because of a sinus infection. It was extremely weird to me, like most things you first experience with your body. I noticed that it was almost a pulsating effect. I would have extremely blurry vision for about 30 seconds, and then it would wear off for about 10 seconds, and then repeated itself, almost to the point that I could time it. Needless to say, I went back to bed and stayed at home for the entire day. Around dinner time, I began to have the symptoms of a horrible migraine headache, and extreme nausea. I felt absolutely horrible. I started to think that the headache would go away if I could just throw up and get it over with. That point finally came, but the headache got worse, which is not the reaction I was looking for. The pounding got so bad that I called Jodi down to help. My dad is an emergency medicine physician at the Scott and White Hospital in Temple, Texas. Jodi decided to make a call home for his advice. After describing my migraine, nausea, and blurry vision, he requested that I go to the Emergency Room here in Lubbock. By this time, it was nearly 9:30pm. Jodi drove me to the emergency room, I signed in, explaining that I had a possible inner ear infection and sat down in the waiting area. Over two hours went by, watching people walking in the door and being called back. I immediately got a little hesitant and went to check on my status. The nurse at the front told me that my problem wasn’t life threatening and would have to wait, little did he know that it was in fact life threatening and he or I didn’t know it! I sat back down. My brother, Zac, was nice enough to come up to the emergency room to keep us company. It made the time go by faster, and I began to feel better. I remember having my craving for McDonald’s again and was almost to the point of leaving the ER and heading straight there. I waited. They finally called my name and took me back to a room. The doctor came by after another 30 minutes waiting in the small room and asked me what my problems were. I told him I vomited, had an extreme headache, and was dizzy and had trouble seeing. He told me the exact same thing the doctor told me the previous day, “You have a sinus infection and you need to be on an antibiotic immediately.” I was like, fine, please let me go home now. I waited another 45 minutes in that room for them to bring my prescription to me. I was a little shocked that they didn’t give me a shot of any kind, or a pill for that matter. I made my way back to the waiting room and told Jodi to take me home as soon as possible. The nausea was getting bad again, and all I could think about was getting back to my room and my bed. By the time all of this was over, it was 1:30 in the morning.



Wednesday…
Jodi went out on Wednesday morning and picked up my $65 bottle of antibiotics with 5 pills in it. I remember making the comment, “Boy, if each of these pills is $12, it better do something.” I began the antibiotic, taking 2 on the first day as instructed. I continued to take the Sudafed as well, to help keep the headache and stuffiness down. By this time, I was drinking HEAVY amounts of fluids. I started to think to myself, like everyone does when they are sick, I need Vitamin C. I had Jodi go out to the store and get me 2 large bottles of apple juice. I drank BOTH bottles in a matter of 12 hours. I later found out that was over 300grams of sugar that day. I had to use the restroom nearly every hour. I kept thinking to myself, “Well, I sure am drinking a lot, which must be why I have to go so often.” Little did I know the vicious pattern I was in. As the day rolled on, I began to feel worse. At this point, I could barely see anything straight. My depth perception was completely gone; I kept falling over trying to find my bed. I thought that maybe the antibiotic had some side effects that I wasn’t aware of, so I decided to just make it to bed early that night and see how I felt the next day.



Thursday…
I woke up Thursday morning and actually felt a little better and decided to go to class to avoid getting too far behind. I remember sitting in class and not being able to see anything the teacher was showing on the board. At this point, I started to get real frustrated with myself for not knowing what the hell was going on. I quickly came back home, called Jodi again to come by. We sat down and tried to figure this all out. I called my dad on the phone and asked him what was going on, I was panicky and upset that I couldn’t explain the symptoms I was contracting. I knew at this point, that whatever those doctor's told me was a misdiagnosis because I was on heavy medication and was feeling WORSE. My dad asked me over the phone, “Have you noticed that you’ve lost weight recently?” I thought to myself for a second, “Why would he ask that? Why would that be related to any of this?” I replied, “Actually, I’ve lost about 25 pounds in the past 3 months or so. He then immediately cut me off and asked me, “Have you been urinating a lot and drinking heavy amounts of fluids?” I replied, “Actually, yes I have now that I think about it.” He bluntly answered back, “You have diabetes, and I need Jodi to bring you home TODAY.” You’d have to know my dad to understand, that he would never ask me to do anything that would cause me or Jodi to miss class or work. Hearing his voice say this over the phone put me in a state of shock. However, the good news was Jodi and I were already planning on coming home that weekend because I had a job interview with a potential employer on Friday which I did not want to have to miss. We immediately got in the car and drove home. The drive home is a 360 mile drive, which takes about 6 hours more or less. We arrived in Temple around 7 that night, and my dad called in an order for blood work to be done at the Scott and White Emergency Room. This time, there was no wait. They rushed me in, asked me questions while they were drawing the blood. After a few minutes of waiting for the lab work to be sent off, they came back and told me that my glucose level was 383. I remember turning to my mom and asking her, “What is the normal?” My eyes widened as she stated, “80 – 120.” “Yikes,” is what I said next. The only thing I could think of at this point was missing the interview the next day, which was down in College Station, about a 1 hour drive from Temple. Jodi already had reservations for a hotel down there, so with the approval of my dad, we drove down there. We arrived around 10pm at the hotel, and were greeted by an old friend of mine who was living and going to school in College Station at the time. We went to the room and started to share a few laughs, just brining up old memories. I was laughing pretty hard, but all of sudden some weird events started to transpire. I remember laughing, but hearing myself laugh, more like an echo and my vision completely blacking out. I got extremely scared and said rather bluntly, “Keith, I really think you should leave.. I can’t keep laughing like this.” Before he left, he agreed to drive me to the interview the following morning as he knew where the business was. After he left, I immediately hit the bed and fell right to sleep. The entire night, I was having nightmares about the interview, what was I going to do if I couldn’t see his hand to shake it? Should I tell him that I just found out I was diabetic? Am I going to get so dizzy that I’ll fall over? Will I get so fired up in the interview that I’ll black out and pass out in front of him?



Friday…
I awoke to my alarm Friday morning and was hyped about the interview. This was an interview that I was waiting to attend for months. This company was really interested in me, and I wanted to prove my knowledge and eagerness to work for them after graduation. I woke up, got out of bed, and nearly fell over on the floor. I almost began to cry, I didn’t know what my body was doing to me. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t function anymore. I decided right then and there to call the company and cancel the interview. Jodi was down in College Station for graduate school interviews and induction so I couldn’t ask her to miss out. My mom was nice enough to drive down to College Station to pick me up. She made an appointment to see my family doctor later that day to hear the blood test results. We arrived at our family doctor, real nice young physician who seemed to know what he’s talking about. Finally a doctor who didn’t say I have a sinus infection. After his initial welcome, he started off by saying the obvious, “you have diabetes.” He then went on to explain what it was, how I got it, and treatments are available. He talked about Hemoglobin A1C, and how the normal range was between 4.0 and 6.8, mine was 11.8, which is an average blood/sugar for the past 3 months around 295. He told me that I’ve probably had high blood sugar for much longer than that, since the number was so high to begin with. He went on talking about the treatments in further detail, explaining how there are pills and insulin. At that point, he was unsure if I was Type I or Type II, but he eventually decided that it was better to be safe than sorry and decided to go with the insulin. Since it was later Friday afternoon, the endocrinologists were packing up to head home for the weekend, so we literally sped to the main hospital to the endocrinology desk. They immediately took me back to visit with the registered nurse who trains people on how to inject insulin, and how to test blood / sugar. Needless to say, this was a crash course for me, and I was having a difficult time staying focused, as my vision was still blurry. I eventually gave myself the first shot of insulin, and tested my blood sugar; it was 375 at that time. Mom brought me back home, and we tested my blood sugar before I began to eat, it had already dropped to 257 in a matter of an hour. Later that night, I will never forget. I was busy in my room reading the encyclopedias of diabetes when I started to feel something I’ve never felt before. I felt really cold, and my hands started to jitter. Luckily, I just got through reading the page on hypoglycemic reactions and figured that’s what was happening. I went to our bathroom and checked my blood sugar, and was surprised to find it at 85. Still in normal range, but seeing as my body has been used to 300+ readings for God knows how long, I was feeling horrible. I vomited several times, and lay on the bathroom floor sweating horribly. After drinking a juice pack, I began to feel a little better 10 minutes later. Mom gave me some nausea medication and I fell asleep on the couch out in our living room.



Saturday…
Things were much better on Saturday, my blood sugar levels were staying below 200, and I started to feel like my old self again. I began to start early, watching what I was eating, practicing giving shots, and checking my blood sugar often. Saturday night ended up being the best night sleep that I think I’ve had in a year. I woke up Sunday morning completely refreshed and feeling like a million bucks.



Today…
I’m happy to say that I’ve taken control of diabetes. It no longer has control over me, I won’t let it. I’m eating healthy, staying away from fast food, figuring out my insulin dosages, carbohydrate counting, and other such adventures in the jungle of diabetic care.



Thanks...
I want to thank most of all Jodi Pavolini, my fiancée, for all of her attention during this tough time. Without her, I don’t think I would have come to accept becoming a diabetic as well as I did. She gives me a certain kind of outlook on life that I don’t get from anybody else. I love you more than anything in this world Jodi.

I want to also thank my entire family, especially my mom for coming with me to my appointments, and diabetic education classes. Without my mom, I probably would have ended up forgetting half of the information they dropped on me. I love you, and my entire family for their support. I love Emily for being interested in my disease, watching me give myself a shot, watching me check my blood / sugar. You have no idea what that meant to me. Thanks to Zac for calling me up and checking on me, hanging out with me and Jodi in the hospital, and for just being there. Thanks to my dad for telling me to come home, if I wouldn’t have listened to you, things would have been much worse than they already were.

Thanks to my good friend Keith Wycliffe for sitting with me in the hotel room keeping me company. I appreciate you being a friend of mine.

Thanks to Michael Rivera, who met with my professor's and kept them informed on my progress to recovery and helped to get my assignments to me. Thanks to all my professor's for being kind enough to give me the time away from classes to attend diabetic instruction courses and adapt.

In closing, I hope that reading my story will help others to realize how the disease creeps up on people. Or if you already are diabetic, I hope that reading my story will help you to realize that you aren’t alone, and that others know exactly what you are going through.

Yours Truely,
Marc Bollinger
Take a look at Marc's website. It is a brother website to Ashley's Diabetes Information Center. You will find alot of good information on diabetes including a Glycemic Index.