Until I was fifteen years old, diabetes was just an empty word. Sure, I knew it existed, but it seemed like a disease that would never affect my life. Diabetes suddenly got a face the day my best friend was diagnosed.

When my best friend didn’t show up to school one day, I wasn’t worried – until she hadn’t been in school for a week. I assumed she had the flu that was going around, so when she finally did come back to school I brightly asked if she was feeling better.

“Turns out I never had the flu,” she said. “I have diabetes.”

My jaw dropped. I didn’t know how to react.

She told me how she had been constantly sleeping, constantly hungry, and constantly thirsty. She said she lost 30 pounds in three weeks, and I abruptly noticed how thin she was. She said that she’d been at Boston Children’s Hospital for a week, that they made her drink liquid potassium since her nutrient levels were so low, and that they taught her how to give herself insulin shots. She showed me her new blood glucose test kit and vials of insulin. I watched her prick her finger and smear blood on a test strip. And I didn’t know what to say.

Five years later I still don’t know what to say. How can I relate to this incredibly difficult disease when I don’t have any health worries? How do I treat her just like normal while still acknowledging her disease?

Diabetes simply became a part of life. We didn’t talk about the disease much because she didn’t want constant reminders, so I usually only saw her seemingly easygoing management of the disease. We named her OmniPod, I’d point out when her Continuous Glucose Monitor was beeping, and we went on living.

Sometimes though, I saw glimpses of the hardships of life as a person with type 1 diabetes (T1D). I saw that her parents had to wake her up several times in the middle of the night to check her blood sugar since she kept dropping in her sleep. I saw her and her mother fight constantly about how she was managing her diabetes. I saw her shock after we went on a run when she realized her blood sugar had been very low – she announced cheerfully, “You’re lucky you didn’t have to carry me back!”

I also saw the power of JDRF Advocacy. I went to the Boston Walk to Cure Diabetes as part of team “DiaBEAThis.” We walked with thousands of people around the Esplanade, and I saw how many people T1D affects, and how many turn out to support a cure. I felt like I was a part of something bigger than me.

I’m now studying Public Relations/Journalism at American University in Washington, D.C. She’s a D.C. college student too, loving college life and managing her diabetes. We don’t spend as much time together as we used to, but every time I arrive at the JDRF Government Relations and Advocacy office, I feel a secret little pride that I’m hopefully making a difference in my friend’s life. Finally, I have a chance to help her with the disease I could never relate to.