Sotomayor Tells Kids Their Diabetes Diagnosis Won’t Limit Their Accomplishments
Justice Sonia Sotomayor told a group of diabetic kids on Tuesday that the disease won’t stop them from accomplishing what they want in life.
Sotomayor, who turns 57 on Saturday, is the first known diabetic on the U.S. Supreme Court, the Los Angeles Times reports. She told children about her symptoms and diagnosis as a child and offered words of encouragement in a speech covered by several news outlets, including the Times, NPR and USA Today.
“You get to do anything you want in life, because I have,” she said at an event sponsored by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Being a Supreme Court justice, she said, is “a really cool job.”
Sotomayor told the children that dealing with the disease gets easier. She was only 7 when she first experienced symptoms: constant thirst, bed wetting from drinking so much liquid, and a fainting spell. When she went to the hospital for tests, the sight of a needle spurred her to run from the hospital, falling beneath a parked car.
She remembered having to prick her finger with a razor blade and boiling needles before school. “The discipline helped me,” she said.
Hat tip to How Appealing.
