Pennsylvania welcomes you, and your ketoacidosis

When I was young, naive, and newly diagnosed, I was riding in the car with my father when I spotted a license plate that was not like the others where I lived.  It looked something like this:

“Oh look, Daddy, Pennsylvania is The Ketone State!”.

My father quickly corrected my reading error and we never spoke of it again.  Undoubtedly, this was a result of a child’s one-track mind that was all-diabetes, all-the-time.  No, that commonwealth west of the Delaware River was not filled with people like me, injecting insulin, feeling mildly confused, and cheesecake-deprived.

It would be years before  I would find someone like me.

The folks at PennDOT must have sensed my sadness and loneliness, because they soon after changed the tagline on their license plate to the more endearing “You’ve Got A Friend in Pennsylvania.”  And for a week in 2012, a small part of the state actually did become home to all things diabetes.

Later on in life, I would find living in Pennsylvania for college and several years after graduation.  By then, they’d put the Ketone Keystone State motto back on their plates.