Personal Narrative: Katie Birrenkott

A hero is a person that takes time out of their everyday life to help a person in need. Katie Birrenkott, my older sister, is my hero. She is 24 years old, graduated from college, and back in her hometown to pursue her dreams as an independent woman. No matter who it is, she will be there for anybody.

During my sophomore year in high school, I was an average kid that played volleyball, weight lifted, worked hard in school, and always spent time with friends. As a competitive team, we ended the year in volleyball with first in EDC. Winning was great, everything was great. Thanksgiving came around and I was so excited to eat all of the food in the world. At the time, I did start weight lifting and running after school to stay in shape, but also

She only made two trips a year which was for some time in the summer and for Christmas. She and I cope well and are basically like twins, but 7 years apart. She usually comments on how large my leg muscles are at some point being home, but this time it was a different comment. She asked me if I was ok and said I looked sick. I kind of just put it off because she always has to say something to judge the way I do something or the way I look. The New Year came through and I just wasn’t feeling anything. I did not feel like me anymore. When my braces were taken off, it was probably the worst experience in my life because my mouth was so dry as well as everything else. They kept stretching my mouth and it would just crack and bleed and it hurt so terribly. I took my first “I got my braces off” picture and I didn’t look like myself. Two days later Saturday came along and it was the Championship of the Bison game. My father was down in Texas for the big game while my mother and I watched it at home. Katie saw my no braces picture that I posted and told me I needed to advance into the doctor. I refused and did not want to leave. She called my mother and told her that she needed to bring me in soon because I was not looking healthy. She was scared that I might have cancer and then it hit me. All I thought about was the past month and how all of these events

As soon as I was on track with how it works and what to do, everything was getting better. I was gaining my weight back and didn’t look like a skeleton anymore. I was back to a normal, healthy human being. I carried on with my life, having struggles processing the fact that I had diabetes. It gets a little overwhelming at times, but I knew deep down that I could do it. I couldn’t have been more thankful for a sister like Katie that looks out for