I'm nine years old, sitting in the car with my family, watching the lights of a little town flash by as the car whizzes along the deserted highway in the wee hours of the morning. I have to go to the bathroom. Badly. My parents pull to the side of the road to let me go potty. As my mom helps me she notices I'm peeing much more than a nine-year-old should. 50 miles down the road I have to go bathroom again. By the time the sun rises, I begin to feel very sick. We are still a few hours from home when I start throwing up in the car. My mom rubs my back and tries to help me feel better. She notices that I'm beginning to hyperventilate and, thinking I'm just freaking out a bit, she encourages me to control my breathing. We finally get home and I go lay on the couch with a drink and a movie while my siblings unpack the van. I see the screen of our little DVD player swimming in and out of focus as I drift into a world of darkness. Some time later my mom walks out of her room to check on me and sees that my eyes are half open and I'm hyperventilating in my sleep. My family noticed that I began to look skinnier and skinnier in a matter of minutes. I wake up suddenly, crying out loudly in pain, my back feeling like it's on fire. I remember that moment very clearly- I am sobbing, my mom is rubbing my back, and my sister hands me a popsicle because I can't drink anything, then I suck on it so hard that half of it breaks right off into my mouth. That was the most intense pain I have ever experienced. My parents call our pediatrician who tells them that I am going into Diabetic Ketoacidosis. I begin to have a seizure, and my parents rush me to the ER. When I get there, I look like a skeleton with gray skin stretched over it. The nurses rush me into a back room where doctors swoop down and start working on saving my life. When they test my blood sugar it is too high for the hospital meters to read, so it's at least above 900 mg/dL. After some time of desperate action, I began to regain consciousness. I remember waking up in a very bright room where they kept asking me questions to verify whether or not I had brain damage, which I didn't. Later I was placed in the ICU for some hours, and then in a hospital room for a couple of days so my blood sugar could come down. Those couple of days would forever change my life. I remember how cheerful and sweet the nurses were and how much they brightened my day. Realizing how much joy they brought to me made me want to do the same for others. These amazing nurses, who I do not know, inspired me to be like them. I now want to be a nurse who brightens the lives of her patients and serves them well, not only with a smile but with excellence of care. I want to reach out to people who are alone and in pain in the hospital and help them the way I was helped- with empathy and cheerfulness. I want to be able to continually give myself to others to make them happy, and the best way I can think of to do that is by being a Nurse

I am a type one diabetic, diagnosed at the age of 9. I was taken to the hospital, dying from diabetic ketoacidosis, in my mother's arms and was saved in the nick of time by the doctors there. During my stay in the hospital, while family and friends came and went, I noticed the nurses. They worked so hard, were so cheerful, and were always ready to chat, even though I later realized they must have been very busy with other patients. Their loving care later inspired me to become a nurse to help children who were diagnosed with diabetes. Nursing is my goal, but I am determined to be a nurse who not only takes care of the physical health of the patient but tends to their mental health in addition. I have decided that I not only need an excellent education in nursing but also a superior education in humanities, allowing me to better understand human nature and the means of increasing happiness in my patients and friends. My diabetes has thrown a few wrenches in the ease with which I learn at school. Frequently I will have low or high blood sugar and have to step out of class to take care of it. Sometimes I do not have the necessary supplies at school and have to go home in the middle of class to take care of myself. I run cross country as well, and juggling diabetes and running can be both challenging and frightening. Diabetes prevents me from being free to push my body as hard as I want to, and it also impedes my ability to perform as well. However, no matter what happens I have learned that pushing through the inconvenience and taking care of my health is always the best option and is more important than winning a race. I am filled with gratitude that I have a disability that still allows me to exercise and live semi-normally. Diabetes is difficult and dangerous but I can still run and jump and eat and swim, and I still have more physical freedom than those who don't have legs or arms or are paralyzed. Through living with diabetes, I have learned that true independence is not being free from pain or oppression, it's having the freedom to choose the right thing in the moment. Learning to take care of myself and choose the right thing for my health and education has taught me that true independence frees not only me but those around me. Independence is not something that brings people down but lifts and unites them. Independence is not a solitary word, it joins people together to choose the right thing again and again of each person's free will. I have learned that independence does not mean being alone but that leaning on others can bring great freedom of spirit and great peace. The education I am choosing for myself will help me think independently, relying on those I trust but having my own ideas and thoughts. It will help me have both the courage and the intellect to stand up to those who are doing wrong, especially in the workplace. It will help me help others become independent, healthy, and strong. Hopefully, I will also receive enough money to help others financially if they need it and to help raise a family. My education is of the utmost importance in my life because it will help me be happy, take care of myself, and help bring joy to others.

I was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes at the age of 9 because I went into Diabetic Ketoacidosis and I nearly died because of it. My blood glucose was so high that it maxed out the hospital's meters at around 900 mg/dL. Thankfully, the doctors were able to save me in the nick of time and I was able to leave the hospital in a few days with the only change being that I now had a life-threatening illness that would forever change me. With my family's help, I quickly became self-sufficient in my care because my parents wanted me to be independent and self-reliant. From the beginning of my diagnosis, I was not afraid but just looked at Diabetes as one more thing I had to do, almost like another chore. The hardest thing for me was how most people don't understand that Type One Diabetes isn't from overindulgence but is something that cannot be prevented. I often explain this to people because they seem puzzled that I (who am a pretty fit person) have Diabetes. I want to help spread awareness for Type One so that people not only know what DKA looks like but also so they know the causes behind Type One. This scholarship would help me pay for my college and nursing school costs because my parents are only able to pay for high school. I currently have a summer job but am unable to work during the school year because of working hard to get good grades and because of family obligations. I would love to go abroad during college for some weeks because I have never traveled outside of the country because of how expensive it is. I am trying to go to a good liberal arts college because I am fascinated by humanities and want to become well-rounded in my education. During my stay at the hospital when I was diagnosed, the thing I most enjoyed was talking to the lovely nurses who were helping me. After those few days, I knew that I wanted to become a nurse- and because I love children and want to help new Diabetics, I wanted to work with newly diagnosed diabetic children because I know what it feels like and can easily empathize with them. My diabetes gave me lots of experience with needles, exact measurements of medication, and pain. I knew this would be important in nursing but I never found it very difficult to do because my mentality was just that it was what I had to do to be healthy, and I knew that I had to stay healthy because that's the best thing for me. My diabetes helped me to grow closer to God too because I would offer up my finger pricks and insulin injections for those who I loved or was worried about. Even still whenever I put in a new pump site I offer it up for a loved one because any pain I feel is just another opportunity to help someone in need. My diabetes has shaped not only who I am today but who I want to be for the rest of my life. It has given me the ambition to help others like me who need someone who knows the struggles of diabetes and who can sympathize with their pain. Given the choice, I wouldn't change the fact that I am diabetic. It has made me a better person, so it's worth the pain and the risk.