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On September 23, 2003, I was born at the Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago Illinois
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When I was around ten months old, my parents decided to take me on a trip to Europe. We went to Holland, and from there, to Romania so that the majority of our family who lives there, aunts, uncles, grandparents, could see me.
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My mom noticed some problems that were not normal going on with me about a week before I was diagnosed. I had to pee often and was thirsty most of the time, which unbeknownst to her, were signs of high blood glucose. When my parents took me to the hospital, that is where we found out about the diagnosis, type 1 diabetes, and it was time to adjust to a new life.
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September 9, 2009, was one of the "saddest" days of my life, at least for 5 year old me. I had to go to school for the first time, and I remember it being so scary and I was crying so much for my mom. The school that I went to was Beaubien Elementary, and I went there until I graduated.
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In April of 2010, there was a very exciting day, my first field trip. We were going to the Shedd Aquarium, which I really didn't know much about. My mom chaperoned which did make me feel better as I was pretty nervous about it. At the Shedd Aquarium though, I was just amazed. I loved seeing those beautiful aquariums, the sharks, the spider crabs, everything was just so cool.
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In June of 2010, I experienced my first graduation, kindergarten. To be honest, I didn't really know what was going on, so I was just happy there was a ceremony and I got a Lego set afterschool. One thing I will always remember is that we, my class and I, all had to walk into the auditorium in a line to do our performance on stage, and I broke the line because my mom and dad were there and I went to hug them.
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My aunt from my Dad's side was getting married, and she chose me to be the ring bearer. I was so incredibly nervous about it that it ended up to the point where I told my mom to pick someone else. Eventually, I did do it and practiced it, and I did a pretty good job.
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Over the past few recent years, we noticed that my knee would sometimes just buckle, and I would fall. I would hurt for a bit, but then get better. It would just happen randomly so it was pretty annoying. We went to a doctor, Doctor Abraham, and he said I would need surgery. It was not so bad, but definitely an interesting experience. One thing I will always remember is my Dad feeling dizzy after he saw the nurse give me the IV and they brought him apple juice.
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My family and I were taking a road trip to Florida to go to Disney Land. My Dad, loving cars, and Corvettes wanted to stop on the way to the Corvette Museum. Admittedly, I didn't really want to go, but I'm so happy we did. This was a big part of what made me love cars and make it my hobby. The cars were so cool, the sound they made was heavenly, and it just ignited this fire in me for the love of cars.
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I was always a good student, did my work, got good grades. In the sixth grade though, I was just an idiot. I wanted to be this "cool kid", and just didn't care about school, just plain stupidity. It was until March when I got a note saying that if I don't fix my grades, I will have to go to summer school. This woke me up and made me realize that I had to get it together. My final grades were good, and no summer school for me.
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So now, with the first surgery going very well, and perfect recovery, Doctor Abraham said it was time to do my left knee now, as it was getting worse. The reason for doing the right knee first is because it was really bad, and the left knee was still in decent shape. This surgery also went well. Dr. Abraham is such an amazing surgeon, and he was 76 when he did it. Now both my knees are perfectly fine and I can be normal activities without the worry of injuring them.
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So as you might've seen previously, what happened in sixth grade changed how seriously I took my school. Well, this showed in eighth grade. My school had an awards ceremony, where there were different awards and they would call the student's names to go get them off the stage. I got the Honor Roll award, where you only receive by getting A's and B's the whole year. It was a proud moment.
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In the summer of 2018, I graduated from eighth grade. It was a pretty bittersweet day. While being happy to graduate, I would miss that school and most of the people there. There were a few exceptions. Fortunately, though, I still keep in touch with my friends from Beaubien.
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In the summer of 2018, as a graduation present, we went to the Lamborghini factory in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy. I was unbelievably excited to see it and it lived up to my expectations. Seeing the attention to detail put into making the whole car, and seeing those engines being built was just the best thing in the world. Not to mention the museum they had with all these amazing cars. One of the coolest parts though was my dad paying for me to get a ride in one, the Lamborghini Hurucan.
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So I applied to all honors at Taft, so I was pretty nervous. On top of that, Taft is a huge school, so it was overwhelming. A problem I had was finding my classes. So many kids and rooms and teachers, it was just all so new and confusing. Good thing I learned my way around quickly. I also met my best friend in that first week.
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One moment that I was really proud of was being able to solve a Rubix cube. Having just bought one, I decided to learn it. There was a really good video on Youtube that helped, and it took about half an hour to solve the cube. Now, I'm still not that good, being able to solve it in about 40 seconds, but happy that I know how to solve it.
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So I had my permit for nine months and drove well over 50 hours. It was time to finally get my license. I had practiced the route that you have to drive with my driving instructor, so I felt pretty well prepared. The person who would observe my driving was pretty strict, which didn't help with my anxiety. Fortunately, I did very well and received my license.
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The COVID 19 pandemic drastically changed the world. I can only hope things will go back to normal. It changed the world and all of our lives. I hated not being able to see my grandparents for some months. Fortunately though, now we meet up with each other almost weekly. The vaccine as well should hopefully come out soon.
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Now with quarantine starting, there was one thing that I never really took into consideration, my weight. It had gotten to be too much, and it was time to do something about it. On that day, I decided to finally do it, and take my health seriously. I am now currently down 40 pounds. It was not easy, and I would've liked the lose more, but I did what I could with the gyms closed and diabetes. I have so much more confidence though and feel 1000x better about my self.
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So with the pandemic still going on, it looked like we were going to be doing online school. I hated it at first, although now I'm really liking it. It's nice being able to stay comfy at home. It did take some time to get used to and get into the flow of things, but well, we got used to it.
