Can I tell you a secret? The thing I want to do most in life, I can’t. I was 4 years old when I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D). Finger sticks, carb counting, and shots became daily life. My parents instilled a mantra in me that I could do anything I wanted, we just had to fit T1D into the activity. By high school I was unstoppable. I swam on the varsity swim team, sang and danced in the show choir, acted in school musicals and regularly had my CGM (continuous glucose monitor) ripped off by opponents on the water polo team. I could do anything. Juice boxes in the theater wings, fruit snacks stuffed in my pockets during a choir performance and coaches carrying my glucose tabs. I refused to let T1D stop me. Then came my junior year. On a whim, that year I signed up for a JROTC class my freshman brother was taking. I knew nothing about the volunteering opportunities, physical and academic competition teams and community that lived behind that classroom door. I jumped my Air Force issued boots into a world I fell in love with. I volunteered for as many service hours I could pack into my schedule, I ran around the woods at night with my fellow cadets at orienteering competitions and I solo flew a plane for 2 minutes with the Civil Air Patrol. Have I mentioned that the OCP pockets on the required uniform hold four juice boxes and six packs of gummies at once? By the end of the year I was the most decorated first year cadet. My brother was thriving too. He always knew he would go into the military with a goal to attend USMA, West Point. I never had an interest to join the military. After my T1D diagnosis our family’s catchphrase was “Connor can do anything he wants with T1D, except join the military”. It never occurred to me that the military might be something I was interested in…until it was. T1D had finally hit a hard stop in my life. I understood the reason why the rule exists, there is no corner Walgreens on a battlefield to pick up my life sustaining insulin for when I run out. But I still feel jilted for the first time knowing my goal to be a trauma nurse will be regulated to a hospital ER and not a Blackhawk helicopter as a military med corps nurse. I can’t help but try and find a way to fit T1D into my goals. I have learned that I can work at a hospital on base as a trauma nurse for the men and women in uniform that I respect so much. I refuse to waste time dwelling on what life could be without T1D. I would rather spend that energy on learning my lines for the winter musical or my next JROTC orienteering competition, because some of those maps are impossible to read in the dark. I found out about this amazing scholarship geared towards future nurses on the Bold.org website. Thank you.