From as early as I can remember, my life has always revolved around food. I grew up on a vineyard in Corsica, an island that is a cultural blend of France and Italy. In addition to wine, my family also produced olive oil and grew every kind of fruit and vegetable one can grow under the Mediterranean sun. They also owned a restaurant and a farmer’s market. My first job, when I was 9, was to pick basil, rosemary, and lavender in the morning and tie them into little bunches.

Ten years later, and a couple of days after my diagnosis, my family doctor sent me to a renowned diabetes center in Paris, where I spent a week under the care of some of the best endocrinologists and T1 specialists in Europe. They taught me how a pancreas works but couldn’t tell me why mine doesn’t, woke me up every other hour in the middle of the night to prick my finger, and tested my A1c, thyroid, lipid panel, creatinine, and other things I can neither spell nor pronounce. I was allowed to go outside for walks as long as I carried a juice box and promised to be back within the hour. Every day, nutritionists pinned chart after chart on the walls of my tiny hospital room for countless doctors to come in and look at without acknowledging my presence. And food was turned into a medical jargon of numbers.