Clark Vowell recognized the symptoms, but he didn't want to face the reality. He thought of himself as a healthy 16-year-old kid — a little skinny, sure, but not one with a serious disease.
"I only thought diabetes came from eating too much sugar and bad food," Karen Vowell said, after her son Clark told her he might have diabetes. "He started losing weight and looked like a skeleton. We knew he wasn't a druggie."
Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin, a hormone necessary to convert sugar, starches and other food into the energy needed for daily life.
Type 1 diabetes, or T1D, is an immune disorder in which the body attacks and destroys insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. In Type 2 diabetes (T2D), the body either does not produce enough insulin, or the cells ignore the insulin.
The symptoms Mrs. Vowell noticed in her son were those of T1D. While Type 2 diabetes can be prevented, controlled and even cured with a healthy diet and exercise, Clark's condition is genetic and, for now, incurable.
Tuesday marked the 25th Annual American Diabetes Association Alert day, a reminder for the public to take a test to determine if they are at risk for developing diabetes. According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), seven percent of the U.S. population is living with this disease.
The number of Americans with diabetes has continued to increase, according to the Center for Disease Control's most recent National Diabetes Fact Sheet. So has the number of Americans with prediabetes, a condition that increases their risk of T2D, heart disease and stroke.
"When you think diabetes and type one, you think some things are over," Mrs. Vowell said. "Buts it's just a different lifestyle – you don't need to watch every little rock or crevice."
"If anyone could lead the way in this, it is Clark," Mrs. Vowell said. "From the beginning his learning curve was ahead of mine as he began to ask himself what to do to handle this disease."
Mrs. Vowell watched as her son learned how to check his sugar levels, watch how many starches he ate and take insulin. She said that for family members who have discovered their loved ones have diabetes, support is always important.
"Gauge the person's personality and play it to their strengths," she said. "Fortunately, Clark kind of did this on his own."
As many as three million Americans may have T1D, according to Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International, a research center looking for a cure for T1D. The Foundation also reported that each year more than 15,000 children and 15,000 adults are diagnosed with T1D in the U.S. Only five percent of diabetes diagnoses are a case of T1D, according to the American Diabetes Association (ADA).
Before Vowell finally went to the doctor, he suspected that he had diabetes thanks to WebMD. For a while, Vowell said he was constantly drinking water and going to the bathroom – a symptom of the disease, according to the ADA.
After a family ski trip, Vowell said he knew he couldn't wait any longer. He went to the doctor, and although the results were somewhat expected, Vowell said it was still scary.
Vowell stayed a few days in the hospital and immediately began to learn how to live life with diabetes. He said he soon realized that although he had many new responsibilities, life didn't have to turn completely upside down.
Vowell said you learn to check your blood sugar and how much insulin you need to take when eating a bagel compared to chips. As long as someone learns how their body will respond to certain foods, he said, there are hardly any limits.
"Ultimately, it's an individual's responsibility to manage their diabetes, but you can take the good with the bad," Vowell said.
After being diagnosed, Vowell discovered what he wanted to do with his life. Vowell said he wants to finish pharmacy school and help others manage their diabetes – maybe later even help research for a cure.
Until then, Vowell said he will continue to live life to the fullest – and use his diabetes to do so. A few years ago he completed the Tour De Cure, a 100-mile bicycle ride that raises money for the ADA. Though his blood sugar dropped once or twice, Vowell said he was completely in control of his diabetes.
During the summers, Vowell has also participated in camps for children diagnosed with diabetes, where he builds on his passion for helping people face diabetes head-on.
Vowell laughed as he talked about advising others to make diabetes a good thing, and said it might sound weird to some.
"I know not everyone who gets diabetes will be affected like I have, but those who get it do have to try to make a good out of this bad," Vowell said. "It's just my life now."
Carla Cox, a Certified Diabetes Expert, said someone diagnosed with T1D would learn that it is very livable but tedious. Life can be pretty normal but they have to remember to get insulin, check their blood sugars and count carbs when they eat, Cox said.
While this keeps someone with diabetes safe and well educated on what they consume, carb counting can have negative side effects, including eating disorders. "Someone can definitely begin to obsess about it," Cox said, citing eating disorder rates as high as 14 percent of diabetics in some regions.
Cox said T1D can result from a combination of someone's genetic makeup and a circumstance that can make someone more vulnerable – such as a virus like the chicken pox.
A case of this can be seen with Grayson Mohr, a sophomore at the University of Montana. In 1998, Mohr was one of about 5,000 people in a three-week span to be diagnosed with T1D, he said. Doctors told the Mohr family that there had been so many diagnosed, they believed a virus had triggered it.
A few weeks before starting kindergarten Mohr and his family went on a camping trip. One afternoon, Mohr drank a water supply that was intended to last three days. His mom recognized the signs and took him to a diabetes clinic the next day. Soon after, the family confirmed he had T1D.
"A person from the diabetes clinic came over for dinner and to make sure we were doing okay," Mohr said. "I remember hiding under my parents' bed for like an hour and a half because I was scared to take my shots."
With the help of his parents' goofy Band-Aids and reward system, Mohr said he adjusted to life as a diabetic pretty quickly.
Mohr said that just last week he woke up around 12:30 in the morning feeling sick and realized his insulin pump had run out. Mohr tried to walk upstairs to his roommates, but he vomited and had to wait until morning to get help.
Mohr said it had been about nine or ten hours since he had insulin in his system. This had happened several times in his life, but Mohr said that particular instance was beyond anything he had experienced before.
"I called in a roommate and said, this doesn't look okay, I was throwing up blood and I had never done that before – this one was a special occasion," Mohr said.
"I actually think I was incredibly lucky to get diabetes," Mohr said. "Just because I look around in the world and what people have sometimes – diabetes is pretty damn easy – at least I'd rather this than something else."
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