Diabetes Doesn’t Deter Experiences

Things were going well with my preparation. I not only readied my mind mentally to physically leave my home for six months, but I also researched a lot. I looked into Spanish cultural, common Spanish phrases, temperature, countries and cities that I wanted to visit. I also wanted to know about traveling with diabetes because I needed to make myself feel confident enough to know that I could handle it on my own. Some websites that I found helpful were the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and The Diabetes Link, which both have a checklist of things you need to do before going abroad. The most important thing was memorizing diabetes terminology in Spanish ahead of time. This is essential for talking to people in a different language that are interested in how diabetes works, your experience with diabetes, getting through airports, and in case of emergencies communicating with one that may not know English.

From this trip I learned many things. I learned how to navigate a metro in a foreign country and how to make others who speak a different language laugh. I learned about my interests and more about who I am, and I was reminded that diabetes is not a hindrance. Although it is bothersome and I cry about it sometimes, it is who I am and only makes me stronger each time I conquer the day with it. My time abroad with T1D was a blast.