Taken too soon
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
By: Jillian Awe

I am doing this for my mother, to show her how much she meant to me; for myself so that I can stay healthy; and for others so that they don't have to go through the same things as my mother did.

My mother found out that she had diabetes when she was pregnant with me. After I was born, the doctors determined that she had type 2 diabetes.

When I was 12 years old, my mother went into a diabetic coma for over a month. While in the coma, she had 7 heart attacks, her lung colapsed and she had many other issues that were making the situation worse. One afternoon, the doctors told my father and I that we were going to have to think about letting her go because she wasn't responding to anything and she kept having lots of problems. Later that day, one of her doctors decided to try giving her prednisone (a steroid) to see if that would do anything. The next day, she came out of her coma and started to recover.

She had many problems over the next 13 years including walking with a cane because her leg muscles went dormant while in the coma, having to wear oxygen masks because of her colapsed lung, living with MANY medications, having additional heart attacks, congestive heart failure, a 5 valve by-pass, etc. At one point after her coma, she went to the Mayo Clinic for testing to see if they could find out what was wrong with her. The doctors couldn't help her and told her that she may have some kind of rare disease since her health problems don't all point to the same thing.

About 2 years ago, she lost one of her legs because of poor circulation in her foot. A year after that, she lost the other leg for the same reason. She was wheelchair bound up until her death in January 2010. Diabetes was the main underlying problem that made all the other problems worse.

She was a huge inspiration to many people and kept fighting to stay alive no matter what her condition was. She never complained about her situation and tried to help others when she could. She taught me many things about life and about living with diabetes and she has inspired me a great deal. She was my hero and is now my guardian angel. I am doing this for her to show her how much she meant to me; for myself so that I can stay healthy; and for others so that they don't have to go through the same things as my mother did.