Kellan’s Story

When I was 12 I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. At that point in time I had no idea what that meant but my mom knew as she started crying when the doctor told us. I didn’t know that it would change my life forever. I had doubt that I’d never be able to play baseball, the sport that I love so much. My family and I went through the process of understanding diabetes and how to take care of it in the hospital. After a week they let us go home. My summer baseball team had a tournament that weekend that I got released so I told my mom I wanted to play. She was very scared but she said yes because she knew it would make me happy. My vision was very blurry from getting diabetes and it was like that for only the first month but I still went and played. I went into the first game after getting diabetes and I hit 2 home runs. The moral of this story is it only takes one thing to change what you view of what you can do. I thought I’d never be able to play baseball or play baseball to the skill level I was at but I was wrong. I made myself realize that I was wrong and I was happy that I did. Diabetes was a huge curveball for me but I have conquered it better than I thought I would have when I had first gotten it. Stay strong and all of us diabetics are here for each other. We all know what we have to deal with and will always offer advice or help towards one another. T1D Strong!

Kellan Vanschalkwyk