TEEN Spotlight
Tackling the challenge of Diabetes • Story by BARBARA W. RUSSELL Photos by TODD WOOD •
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ourteen year old Andrew Irish is a superb athlete and an honor roll student. Whether he’s playing football or competing in wrestling matches, he excels. But when he was hospitalized and diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, he thought that his days of playing sports were over. Labor Day Weekend 2009 – nothing seemed out of the ordinary for Andrew Irish when he went with his mother to get a hair cut – nothing except that he was really thirsty. He bought a soda and downed it, and it went right through him. Then he bought another with the same result. This seemingly unusual act concerned his mother, Jennifer Wright, who is a certified medical assistant and an EMT. She had also noticed that Andrew had been losing weight. She owed it to the fact that he was still growing, and that his football practices at Ebenezer Middle School were more strenuous than his practices at the Recreation Department. “When he went from Recreation Department football to middle school, his practices went from 2 times a week for 1 – 1 ½ hours, to everyday practices for 3 hours after school,” she said. “He had lost a lot of weight, but he was still growing.” She also thought that was the same reason why he had been more tired than usual after football practices, and Andrew said, “I’d come home from practice, shower and go to bed.” Andrew’s mother had tried to comprehend his fatigue and loss of weight, but that day when she also observed his excessive thirst and learned of his frequent urination, she recognized that he had the classic symptoms of diabetes: excessive thirst, frequent urination, weight loss and fatigue. She took him home to check his blood sugar levels, and they were extremely high. A normal count is 70-110, and his read 500. That was a dangerous level, but she thought maybe her test strips were old and the reading was incorrect, so she took him to the closest EMS to have them check – their result also read “high”. He was immediately taken to the emergency room at Memorial Hospital where he was diagnosed with Type I diabetes. Andrew was hospitalized for three days. “I’ll never be able to play sports again,” was all Andrew could think about as he lay in his hospital bed, hooked up to an IV. “It about broke my heart to know I’d never be able to play the sport I love (football) again,” said Andrew. “I was thinking of the game on Tuesday, and I was thinking I was going to be in the hospital and maybe never play again. I told my mom, and as soon as I told her she said, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be able to play again,’ which I
28 December/January 2011-12 | Effingham Magazine