Hello my name is Jade Gorman and I was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes 2-1-2018.

This summer I attend the Friends for Life (FFL) Orlando conference for the first time. I had an amazing time and I couldn’t be happier that we went. My family and I arrived about three days before the conference started. We spent one day at Magic Kingdom and the other two days walking around the hotel, getting to know it, enjoying the many pools & restaurants.

That Tuesday we checked in for the conference, got our name badges & welcome kits. We also got bracelets that were either green or orange. I got the green one because I have Type 1 Diabetes. The rest of my family all got orange ones because they love someone who has Type 1 Diabetes. They also had yellow ones for people with Celiac. It was very easy to check-in and after we got to put stickers of things we like or sports we do on our badges. Since it was our first time we also had a first timer ribbon on the bottom.

For the next two days we went to conferences about anything and everything. They were split up into age groups and then smaller groups from there. We stated off with a scavenger hunt around the hotel with two new people and two returning people. After that we got put in the groups we would be with for the next few days.

On Thursday they took all the teens (215) to Epcot and we had a blast. We made groups with our friends and it ended up being me and nine other kids. We went on all the rides and had pizza from Italy for lunch. When we first got there we all checked our blood sugars & had breakfast together. Then we went off to enjoy the park in our groups. I feel this off-site was done extremely well since they had us come to the designated meeting spot from breakfast to check our blood sugar before lunch, while we did this they gave us our lunch money. It was also mandatory to check our blood sugar again before we left. You would fill out a form to indicate what your blood sugar was. If it was out of range there were four nurses to assist and lots of food.

On the last day we had more conferences talking about what we enjoyed and what we didn’t. We also got to talk about what we would like to see next year. My favorite conference was “One Backpack, Five Continents” with a man telling his story. His name is Oren Liebermann, he was in the middle of traveling the world with his wife and was diagnosed in a third world country, Nepal. His talk was so inspiring and it was full of great tips and a wonderful message. He is a CNN international correspondent.

Most days the conferences started at nine am and ended around five pm. But you were never bored. Most nights they had a dinner or a party after the conferences. There was a big dinner for the opening of the exhibit hall which was full of vendors. Another night they had a glow dance for the teens with a DJ and a photo booth. But, if nothing was going on we could go to Sports Central and play with professional athletes. They had a football player, an American ninja warrior, bodybuilders like Chris Ruden and a tennis player. Sports Central was also open on breaks from our conference schedule. Some of the people helping out also had their own conferences. And if you didn’t want to do any of that or there was nothing going on that night you could walk around the hotel. There was plenty to do, you could eat, go to the gift shop, or my favorite, go to the pool.

I meet so many amazing people from all over the world. One of the nicest parts was not having to explain what I was doing or what I was wearing. If someone’s alarm went off we would all want to help and it was such a great feeling. Today I stay close with six new friends. One from Illinois, one from Puerto Rico, one from Maine, and three from Florida. We made an agreement to stay as close as we could and FaceTime every weekend. It started off as only Saturday night calls and is now all weekend. We talk for hours and I really do hope we end up as friends for life and I am so happy to call them my best friends.

By Jade Gorman, age 15, diagnosed at 13