In the two years that I’ve been at A&M, the hardest thing I’ve learned to do is adjust; adjust to new experiences, adversity and most importantly, living with people who aren’t family. When you get a new roommate, you learn their habits and they learn yours — good or bad.
There’s a saying that goes, “You don’t know a person well enough until you’ve lived with them.” There are so many things you learn to notice when you share a living space, which is why it’s important to pay attention to the little things.
Last September, one of my roommates found out she was Type-1 Diabetic. We wouldn’t have ever found out until I insisted on taking her to the hospital after several weeks of her feeling sick.
When we came back from summer break, I noticed she had lost weight, which at the time didn’t seem like a big deal. Since she lived an active lifestyle as a lifeguard during the summer it wasn’t surprising. However, it was the little things that I noticed that made me worried.
She would become tired no matter what she did. Even if it was just waking up and making breakfast. The weekend before school started we spent the day lounging around mentally preparing for the new semester. In that day, my roommate must have taken at least five naps and said she was tired.
She was different. Clarissa is the kind of person who is usually full of energy and life. However, the bubbly person I knew was spending her time asleep and in a weird mood. Which caused the worry alarms in my head to go off. We talked about it and said it might be the flu, but then again we aren’t doctors (at least not yet). We both kept an eye on it in the following days and she only got worse.
Then, on the Tuesday after the UCLA game, before she left to class she looked pale. When I asked what was wrong, she told me she had just vomited. I asked her if she was sure she wanted to go to class, she said yes, but if anything happened, she’d call me.
Later that day, she called asking me and my other roommate Andreah if we could pick her up at the PEAP Building on West Campus to take her home because she had just thrown up and wasn’t feeling well enough to drive.
When we arrived, she had no color in her skin and looked sick. Andreah and I made the decision to take her to the emergency room. When we got there, the doctors took her in and ran tests. Her sugar levels came back over 400, which according to the doctors, wasn’t good. After running a few more tests, the doctors were able to determine that she was diabetic.
There is a point in the semester where you feel like work is burying you alive and that’s understandable. Just make sure to pay attention to the people you live with — no matter the relationship. Check in on them ask them how they’re doing and feeling. Because you never know if those little observations can save their life.
Angel Franco is a telecommunication sophomore and sports editor for The Battalion