Now that you have been diagnosed with diabetes, you have a new job--one that most kids will never have. Along with learning how to multiply, divide, and figure square roots just like everyone else, you have a new subject to study: your body's needs with diabetes.

This new job of managing your diabetes is one you will have for the rest of your life. At first, you may get a lot of help with it from your parents or other members of your family. But as you grow up, you will learn to do all of the care yourself--testing, shots, tracking, meal planning, and more.

You will also learn more about your body than most people may ever know about theirs. You will know how it feels when your blood sugar is low or high, and how a stressful event or anything else that throws you off schedule will affect your control. You will learn to manage these times as well as possible by using the tools you have to work with: blood sugar monitors, different types of insulins, pumps, exercise, sleep, food, and more.

For now, just remember that it's totally normal to be scared and to feel every emotion from A to Z about your diabetes. You may have feelings of fear, anger, guilt, confusion, sadness, loneliness, or you may not be feeling much of anything at all. All of this is OK.

Talking with your health care providers and parents about these feelings, when they come, will help you handle them. Remember to be patient with yourself, and try to take things day by day. As you learn more, you WILL feel more in control of your diabetes, and more in control of your own life again.