When Brendan George, now a senior at Marietta College, had just begun high school he also began daily injections of insulin, usually right in his high school cafeteria at lunchtime.
Along with a backpack full of books, he carried a satchel of diabetes supplies with him to school each day.
As a young teen, he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, a form of the disease he'll have for life that couldn't have been prevented with the right diet and exercise.
The recent prediction from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that a staggering one in three Americans could have the often-preventable Type 2 diabetes by 2050 is not surprising, but is frustrating, says the 21-year-old.
"This has impacted me very significantly," said George. "Some days, I just don't want to deal with any of it anymore and I can't just take pills and exercise...my diabetes is never going to go away. And all these resources are going to people with Type 2 who could have prevented it."
The forecast from the CDC should serve as a wake-up call, said Tammy Pierce, the clinical nurse manager for the diabetes center at Marietta Memorial Hospital.
"It's very alarming especially because it's becoming more common in children," she said. "It needs to be all about education and prevention right now. People need to take it more seriously."
With the cost of diabetes treatment already hitting $174 billion a year, with seven to 10 percent of Americans affected, the impact of having triple that number of patients would be tremendous, said Pierce.
"We're starting to get more prepared," she said. "And in the meantime, we're doing what we can to keep the numbers down. Instead of waiting for full-blown diabetes to begin treatment, we're doing more preventative screenings. If someone is determined to be pre-diabetic, with lifestyle changes they can put off diabetes for years."
For those who are diabetic, there can be a multitude of related health problems.
"It can basically affect every organ of the body," Pierce said. "That includes the vascular system, your eyes, kidneys...in a worst-case scenario you could need kidney dialysis."
It's important that those with symptoms or high-risk factors not bury their heads in the sand, Pierce said.
Typically, screenings are recommended for those 45 and older who are overweight. If a doctor recommends screenings, they should follow through and if they're diagnosed as pre-diabetic follow through with exercise and diet recommendations, Pierce said.
"I definitely see a lot of people who don't deal with it until it's full-blown diabetes," she said.
There is some good news in the numbers released by the CDC, say health officials. Some of the increase expected in people with diabetes comes from them living longer due to improved medical care.
The figures also account for people with undiagnosed diabetes, who haven't been included in past calculations.
The numbers were based on data from people with diabetes and pre-diabetes and census projections of mortality and migration.
The best-case scenario, according to this month's CDC report, is that the incidence rate for diabetes rises to 14 percent by 2050, rather than 33 percent.
Even if that happens, numbers are typically higher locally and throughout Appalachia, said Pierce.
While the American Diabetes Association reports that 7.8 percent of the U.S. population has diabetes now, that rate is 10.5 percent in Washington County. In West Virginia, it's 12 percent.
"It's related to lifestyle," Pierce said. "We have high rates of obesity and a lack of exercise and it's leading to a serious problem."
Diabetes is a problem people don't want to have, said George, who not only has constant monitoring and a daily schedule of treatment to worry about but longterm fears as well.
"It's a big deal within relationships, now that I'm getting older," he said. "I don't want to have kids because I'm afraid they'll have diabetes."
Even a big holiday meal with family isn't a time to relax, said George, who has to predict the right amount of insulin to take for how much food he will eat.
"If I get full too soon, I have to force the rest of the food down just to survive," he said.
Though some symptoms and treatments for Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes differ, both cause huge lifestyle adjustments, George said.
"It's something you don't want to have to deal with," he said.
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