Diabetes is a common issue for people in America. But have we ever thought about how it must affect people at school? When you are hypoglycemic you have to worry about your numbers to make sure they don’t go to low. You also have to worry if what you are eating is going to affect the rest of your day, and during a school day that must be hard to deal with.

“It can be hard sometimes,” says Cassidy Anderson, who has a diabetic sister. “You have to make a lot of sacrifices and be supportive.”

The impact it has on family and friends can also be very hard to deal with as well. “It’s a normal thing now, but it still has a big part in our everyday life,” said Anderson.

According to medicalnewstoday.com, “Diabetes, often referred to by doctors as diabetes mellitus, describes a group of metabolic diseases in which the person has high blood glucose (blood sugar), either because insulin production is inadequate, or because the body’s cells do not respond properly to insulin, or both.”

Being in school with diabetes can affect a student’s attention, memory, processing speed, planning, and many other thing they need to do in order to be successful in school.

Diabetes also causes mood changes and can affect behavior which starts harming students at school.

“It starts becoming a routine, it’s pretty simple and I’ve become used to it now,” says Karly Makay a freshman at Desert Vista high school who deals with diabetes. “I’ve become self aware and usually take care of it on my own.”

Diabetes is a hard thing to deal with, whether you get help from people around you, or are forced to deal with it on your own; which is something that students have to do during the school day.