I was diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in September of 1993, at the age of 20, in the first weeks of my sophomore year at Cornell University. Mine was a textbook diagnosis. For three or four weeks I'd been feeling very poorly, mostly including exhaustion, a feverish feeling with heat in my thighs, and my blood feeling "muddy", hot and thick, after meals. The next morning I visited the student health center where they measured my blood glucose at 580, thus diagnosing me with Insulin Dependent Diabetes Melitus, and admitting me to the Ithaca County Hospital.