Holli's Letter

     I wish I could say I was young and carefree in my youth but it was more like young and anxiety-ridden. I had grown up fast in the course of my mom’s three marriages and the first eighteen years of my life were spent making sure my brother and I were perfect to avoid any more controversy in our household. When I turned eighteen and moved out on my own I knew this was finally “my time”. I lived in Fresno, CA….big town with a small town feel….and had fallen in with a semi-wild crowd. I wanted to live big but not too big and by the time I was 20 I was doing just that.

Hey you,

Life is fun huh? Living on your own….going out almost every night….great group of friends…..just what you imagined being 20 would feel like. Did you hear what that doctor just told you though? She said you have diabetes. She said you should change how you eat, how you live--basically your whole world. Now I know this certainly doesn’t fit into the clubbing life you are imagining for yourself in about 2 weeks when you finally reach the golden age of 21, but you really need to listen and understand how this can affect you.

This drinking and smoking, the stress you are under, trying to take on the world’s problems, it’s a ridiculous way to live. The risks the doctor is talking about with this disease….pregnancy complications and skin infections and heart attacks….all very real things that will happen to you.

The daughter you think about having one day that will look just like you? Gone at eight days old, when you are 26, from complications of open-heart surgery to correct a heart defect your uncontrolled diabetes gave to her. The body you are abusing with the Alabama Slammers and the Marlboro smokes? Riddled with scars from a staph infection that gets into your bloodstream because you are too stubborn to go to the doctor. Think you are going to live forever? Think again…..you are lucky to survive the massive heart attack that almost kills you January 2, 2004.

Please…….listen to what the doctors are telling you right now…….because ten years later you will be laying in an ICU hospital bed in Redding, CA asking yourself: “Why didn’t I just listen?” It’s as simple as that. Oh, that guy you think is perfect for you right now? Drop everything and RUN!!!

Love,

Holli