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What if you were just a regular kid in the 6th grade – playing soccer and football but loving baseball best? Your favorite classes are science and math? And, one day, everything changed?
Darion Thompson is a kid like that. He has had to learn a whole new life. For Darion has Type One Diabetes. One day he was fine; the next, he had this.
Darion begins his day with a blood test – before breakfast, can you believe that? And this is really impressive: this 11-year old boy has learned to give himself four – yes, that’s four – shots a day. That is, unless his blood sugar goes haywire, and then he has to have more shots.
But that will get better in December when Darion gets to go on an insulin pump. No more shots after that! And he will be that much closer to his mom’s goal of making diabetes fit into Darion’s lifestyle. He’s already well on his way!
Wolfson endocrinologist, Dr. Jose Canas, has been wonderful in helping Darion adapt to all these new things, too.
But, how could this happen? It is not known what causes Type One Diabetes but in Darion’s case, it is believed that a previous illness triggered it. Although, diabetes does run in his family. A cousin has Juvenile Diabetes and both grandparents had Type 2 Diabetes.
Darion’s mom always fed him healthy meals but now she knows about nutrition that specifically helps people with diabetes. She’s learned this from the Northeast Florida Diabetes Center. The Center is a partnership between Wolfson Children’s Hospital and Nemours Children’s Clinic, and is the only center of its kind in our area. A whole team of doctors, nurses, educators, dieticians focuses especially on diabetes and children who have it. They’ve learned that working together with a team of specialists for diabetes care management gets the best result for the child.
Darion is a pretty amazing kid, right? Well, so are his parents. His dad is a flight operations specialist stationed at the Army’s Fort Carson in Colorado. Soon, the rest of the family will move out to join him. But not until Darion’s mom finishes her certification through the University of North Florida where she is studying to be an elementary school teacher.
Together, they are a team who knows the value of working together for an important cause: Darion’s good health. |
