James Talarico

I got those questions answered.

And, you know, I was mostly concerned with my immediate health because, you know, my blood sugar was at a dangerous level.

And so I was trying to figure out what needed to happen to be able to stabilize the situation.

The second day I was in the ICU, I remember I was talking with my diabetes educator.

That's the person like the hospital provides you with to tell you about this new disease that you have that takes a lot of work.

And I remember she was explaining things to me.

My family had left the room.

I think they went to get something to eat or get a change of clothes.

And so just me and her in the hospital room, I was sitting in the hospital bed.

I was still hooked up to the IVs.

And I remember her telling me about how to inject the insulin and that I would need to do it multiple times a day, that I would have to do it every time I ate, every time my sugars were high.

And I remember asking her in that moment, it seems so silly now, but I remember saying, how long am I going to have to do this?

And she said, for the rest of your life.

And like in that moment, I kind of lost it.

And that's rare for me.

And it was embarrassing because my family wasn't there.

It was just this poor diabetes educator trying to console me.

But it was just, I think, the stress of the two days prior, the weight of the news, all that had just kind of came crushing down on me.

Hearing that this was going to be something I was going to live with forever, it was a big thing to hear confirmed by this educator.

I would also then say, and this is what I've told, I've had a lot of Texans with diabetes, a lot of type one kids who come up to me at these rallies, actually signed an insulin pump, which I thought was weird.