James Talarico

I hike Big Bend every year.

And so I wasn't worried about my ability to pull it off.

Halfway through the walk, I started to feel fatigued and a little nauseous.

I threw up a couple of times along the walk.

Somehow I finished the whole thing, finished the last town hall.

I figured I was just dehydrated.

And so I went to bed.

I thought I just needed a good night's sleep.

And I ended up sleeping for 36 hours straight.

My family got concerned.

They took me to the ER.

Nurses checked my blood sugar.

I don't think I'd ever had my blood sugar tested before.

I wasn't even really sure what blood sugar was.

And they told me that a normal blood sugar is 100 or lower.

Mine was 900.

So I was in a state of...

diabetic ketoacidosis, which leads to coma and death without insulin.

And so I was lucky to be alive, very thankful for the doctors and nurses in Williamson County who brought me back to health.

I left the ICU to go pick up my first 30-day supply of insulin, this new medicine that I now needed to live every day.