Kiera Malone

Biochemistry major

Why Heidelberg: Tiffin was almost an exact copy of my hometown and I really wasn't planning on coming here, but then I experienced the community and found out Heidelberg had a cadaver lab, and I just knew it was my place.

In 1999, when I was 2, my parents found out I had type one diabetes. Since I’ve had diabetes for 17 years many people ask me things like “oh, well how do you do that? I don’t understand.” But it’s always been my normal. Just the other day, I was working Cedar Point and I stashed some smarties in one of my pockets and I didn't want to bring bulky juice because if my sugar goes low I need to eat something and shockingly, my sugar went low, and I was sneaking smarties to get my sugar back up. So during our lunch break from working, I was explaining to people how my sugar went low but I just needed to eat some smarties really fast because that was all the food that I had, so it was kind of scary (rough) but I can manage it. Someone then said to me how scary that is and how they could never do that because I literally almost died, and I’m like…“it’s just a Tuesday”. It’s just a normal day, there wasn't anything special about that happening. I never really think about things like that because I’ve just been so used to it for so long. There are nights where I’ll get up in the middle of the night because my sugar is low, and I’ll sit down on my floor and scoop peanut butter in my mouth for a few minutes, it’s just a normal (daily) thing that I have to deal with.

It’s my normal.

Kiera is involved in many things on campus including a local Sorority, Zeta Theta Psi, Chem Club, Student Alumni Association, and is a Student Ambassador. She will graduate in May 2019, with hopes to attend medical school or a MD/phD program and then join the organization Doctors Without Borders.