Testimony of Sophia Cygnarowicz

Hi. My name is Sophia, and like my friend Dylan, I don't know what it is like to have a day without diabetes. I am seven years old. I have had diabetes since I was one.

I have taken four thousand, three hundred, and eighty shots of insulin and have pricked my finger over thirteen thousand times to test my blood sugar. I don't like it! It hurts! It is so hard to keep my blood sugar in a good range. No matter how hard I try I still go low and high.

Low blood sugars make me very tired and cranky. I need to eat but a lot of times I don't want to. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night because I go low. My mom and dad will feed me and test my blood sugar to make sure I will be o.k. before I go back to sleep.

I just finished first grade. It is hard going to school when you have diabetes. We did cooking projects and had lots of parties. I watched the other kids eat cookies and cake. I couldn't eat them, and that wasn't fair. When I feel low at school I can't think well. My teacher gives me sugar tablets and I walk to the nurses office to do a blood sugar test. A friend comes with me to make sure I get there o.k. Then I have juice and crackers. It takes me a while before I feel better. I don't like to miss class.

Summer is lots of fun, but not when I go low and can't stay outside and play with my friends. I have to eat at the same time everyday so my blood sugar won't go too low. I have to eat even when I'm not hungry.

I don't know what life is like without diabetes, but I sure would like to find out. Finding a cure is important to me because I won't have to take shots or do blood tests. Most of all, I could eat a snow cone whenever I wanted to. My friends in this room and I aren't asking for much, we just want a life without diabetes.