"Why call it a 'Voyage' if you're not a sailor?!"
My earliest memories are emblazoned on the vault doors of my memory bank. I sit on the manicured lawn of my Eugene residence, applying my poetic license via colored pencil medium to my favorite Doctor Seuss book. Sadly, my doodles would never be open for public viewing. In short order, Doctor Seuss, Mother Goose, and the rest of my early childhood friends were locked up in a large cardboard prison and put into storage. Leaving the home I had just become cognizant of, my parents, brother, and I boarded the first and (to this date) longest airplane flight of my life.
When we landed, my chubby two year-old brother's blonde hair, and my four year-old, pasty white face were clearly not the physical attributes of choice in the land I would now call home. During the year I spent in Peru I became fluent in Spanish and completely forgot how to speak in my mundane native tongue. When we returned to the U.S.A. I didn't realize that I was rattling off in a different language and nobody could understand me. Since my reintroduction to English, I have spent my subsequent scholastic career trying to duplicate my childhood Spanish fluency.
Flash forward to Christmas of 1998. With 16 years to call my own and feeling the blissful invincibility of teenage life, the irony of my diagnosis is moderately humorous. After my flu shot two weeks prior, I had remarked to my mother how in some twisted way I almost liked the dull pain of a vaccination in my shoulder. I had shown my hand too soon. After a Christmas dinner with no alcohol, my mother, the perceptive nurse that she is, asked if I had been drinking. She was kind enough to wait until the next day for the expedition to the ER to treat the keytones that were nearly spilling from my every pore.
To say that the diagnosis of diabetes was the turning point in my young life would be cliché and a lie. The turning point came in the form of an empowering offer from the local chapter of the American Diabetes Association. I accepted and acquired a newly created position dubbed Southern Oregon Youth Diabetes Ambassador. The shy identity I possessed blushed and hid behind the passionate advocate brewing inside of me. Speaking alone in front of large audiences with no preparation time barred confidence from my voice. As I got more spontaneous monologues under my belt I realized the power wielded by one voice, especially when it transcends age barriers.
Why live in the past? I am no longer confined to the status of a youth advocate since I am legally allowed to purchase alcohol. Bitten by the travel bug and itching to make a difference, my childhood travels and advocacy background have melded into an undertaking of international proportions. In a world where "fast-pace" applies to everything but exercise, annoying diabetic responsibilities imposed by far-removed doctors and parents cannot begin to compete with the importance of most aspects of teenage life. Diabetes does not fit inside mainstream society's rigid constraints of what is labeled as "cool" in the messages sent to youth today. This can change but a new approach must be adopted to boost the desire for increased control and care of one's diabetes. I am confident that a relatable middleman with the right amount of good craziness can remedy the malady of complacency.
Copyright Noah's Voyage 2004-2007. All rights reserved.