The Start

Hello!So where to start. I became diagnosed pretty much by chance. I went to the doctor for a shoulder injury, and while me and my mom were waiting for the doctor to come back in I asked her if i could get a blood test for Anemia since I have been tired all the time and my oldest sister is Anemic. But when the results took over a week to come back instead of just a few days i became worried. The doctor called and said that I had way too much iron, and that I had to get some genetic testing done. My mom, dad and sister got tested also. My oldest also got tested. They are all carriers, but I was the only one in the family who had full blown Hemochromatosis. Oh course I would be the one to have it. I was the only athlete in the family besides by dad who does triathlons, and I get injured just about every season. I've had two knee surgeries, and get injured all the time. My friends tease me ALL the time about always being hurt. I never really said much about it, i just kept my chin up and kept on trucking. Once I found out I had Hemochromatosis I  expected my friends to comfort me and help me through it. They didn't really do much at all except say " yeah you would be the one with a genetic disease. what else is new?" So they didn't help one bit. The only person that really helped me was my boyfriend Sean.  He was the one who would be with me when i just wanted to stay home and cry the first few days. i lost interest in a lot of things, and just wanted to stay home and watch movies. I think i got so sad about everything because I didn't know much about Hemochromatosis. My dad bought me a few books about it, but one of them on the cover said something like Hemochromatosis, a disease that can kill you. Yeah, that didn't help. haha After that i just tried to forget about Hemochromatosis. That didn't work to well either. I tried just becoming more informed. I figured that if i was more informed that i would feel better knowing there are other people out there just like me. But once again my friends brought me down. I posted on my Facebook that i was so happy i found this support group and that I could finally talk to other people just like me. That's when the teasing started again. I'm a freshman in college now and i figured my new older friends would be more mature. but I was wrong. Now the only people that really help and Sean and my mom. I think there the only two that understand what i'm going through. I've never been interested in drinking, and my friends keep trying to get me to come to parties with them but I have no interest in it, so I tried to use my Hemochromatosis as an excuse. But then they just started google searching about it and found on some sites that it doesn't say anything about not drinking, but in this group, real people and not just plan old information, most say that they can't drink too much with out getting sick. So i just decided that I wanted to get through my freshman year with out drinking. They still try to get me to drink.So all in all, I just need to accept what I have. God has a plan for me, and i just need to wait and see what it is. :)