Not 1 Type of Story: Four East students share their experiences with type 1 diabetes in honor of National Diabetes Awareness Month

It was just bad luck.

Senior Morgan Anderson reminds herself that having a chronic condition isn’t her fault. So does freshman Ellis Duske and her older brother senior Calvin Duske.

Junior Garrett Brown didn’t know at 18 months old that he’d have to inject himself with insulin every day because his pancreas failed. 

It was simply bad luck.

November is National Diabetes Awareness Month, a time to recognize individuals with type 1 and type 2 diabetes and the work they have to do to keep them alive, after their bodies failed them.

Type 1 is an autoimmune disease that affects the body’s ability to create and regulate insulin, while type 2 is a common disease where the body responds poorly to insulin, preventing it from taking in enough sugar. Insulin controls the amount of sugar in our bodies.

These four students have been able to find a light at the end of the tunnel in their diagnoses of type 1 diabetes, through sibling bonding, raising awareness and personal growth.

At eight months old, senior Calvin Duske was in the emergency room. For three weeks, he cried nonstop. He was thirsty and wet his diaper every 30 minutes. His parents thought he had the stomach flu — it had to pass eventually. 

It never did.

After two weeks in the hospital, Calvin was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

His parents were shocked, and then terrified of the unknown. But, with Calvin being so young, checking his blood sugar was easy. He didn’t have a clue what was going on.

Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be the reality of only one Duske sibling. At two and a half years old, his sister and freshman Ellis Duske was in the emergency room. She had fallen asleep at the dinner table, which was abnormal for her. After 24 hours in the hospital, she came home with a type 1 diagnosis.

Healthcare providers commonly use a blood glucose test, according to Cleveland Clinic — whether it’s random or after a period of fasting for eight hours — to see how much sugar is in the blood. Very high blood sugar often means that the person has type 1.

“I usually make it clear the difference between type 2 and type 1,” Ellis said. “A lot of people think type 2 is that you ate too much sugar. For type 1, it’s more. I didn’t fail my body, my body failed me. I didn’t make my pancreas stop working.”

This time, their parents were most concerned with checking blood sugar on such small fingers of a squirmy two-year-old. They had already been through the type 1 journey before. This was just another round of it.

Ellis and Calvin know when the other needs help, even if that’s in the middle of the night — they’ve created a system. Their rooms are close enough to signal for help by turning their lights off and on, especially when suffering from low blood sugar, which can impair their ability to walk.

There are two ends of blood sugar levels — the low side and the high side. Being low can cause dizziness, shaking, blurred vision and weakness in the body. The higher end consists of increased thirst, headaches and fatigue, according to Cleveland Clinic.

Ingesting sugar is a crucial part of increasing blood sugar, things like juice boxes, fruit snacks or candy bars are things that Ellis and Calvin use to help each other that are kept around their house and with them. Calvin’s friends even leave fruit snacks in their cars for him just in case.

While some people with type 1 have a linked cause to their diagnosis, sometimes there’s no reason at all. Genetics aren’t always a factor when it comes to having type 1 or having a viral infection, leaving a lot of people without reason for being diagnosed.

Calvin and Ellis have been able to share their experiences for the last 12 years. If one person needs more insulin, the other person has a supply that can be shared. If Calvin seems like his blood sugar is low after practice, Ellis is the first one to notice.

“Throughout life if Ellis ever needs anything, I know how to help her,” Calvin said. “And whenever I need something, she can also help me. So being at East together now is very nice because for the last three years, I was kind of just alone.”

Dosing insulin through his pump before his meals, checking his blood sugar and changing his pump every three days has become routine for junior Garrett Brown.

He doesn’t know a life without type 1. 

Diagnosed at only 18 months old, Brown doesn’t remember a day without his diagnosis. A bad case of the stomach flu left him fighting off beta cells, leading his pancreas to fail, forever leaving him reliant on glucose monitors and fruit juice.

“Think of [insulin] as the gas for a car, your car can’t run without gas,” Brown said. “My body attacked the pancreas. It stopped working. So I have to have an insulin pump that pumps that insulin into my bloodstream, instead of having the pancreas that does it.”

Leading up to his diagnosis, his parents noticed him wetting his diaper an abnormal number of times daily, and he was always thirsty. He was diagnosed the day they admitted him to the hospital.

In elementary school, he had daily check-ins with the school nurse. He’d walk into her fluorescently-lit office every few hours and he’d write down the blood sugar level that appeared on his glucose monitor which tracks how high or low someone’s blood sugar is. The nurse would then send it to his mom. This cycle repeated four times every school day.

Brown didn’t have a phone until 7th grade — leaving him with no way to update his parents when it came to blood sugar. But, it was freeing for him. He felt like he was able to have more independence because the control was in his hands.

Since then, Brown has immensely improved his communication about how his blood sugar levels affect him. In second grade, his friends began to notice that something was off. When he was hungry or his vision would blur, it was his blood sugar level dropping. Overtime, they learned to easily recognize the signs that he needed help.

“A lot of my close friends can tell when I’m going low because you can’t think clearly, they can tell when I’m acting off,” Brown said. “And they tell me, ‘Hey, Garrett, are you taking sugar? Are you making sure you’re on top of it?’”

Even when he didn’t communicate how he felt when affected by his blood sugar, he’s always been an advocate for type 1. Now, Brown and his family have raised over $400,000 since his diagnosis.

He also advocates for type 1 through volunteering where he can connect with younger kids to educate and help them with their diagnosis.

In 2019, Brown went to Washington D.C. to meet with state representatives, congressmen and senators to fund a diabetes research program. He was one of two people in Kansas chosen to be a representative. He was 12 years old. 

The program passed.

“It’s daunting to be faced with a challenging situation [as a child],” Brown said. “But I try to make light of it a little bit, even though it’s a tricky thing to navigate, you can do it. It’s not impossible.”

Senior Morgan Anderson was 10 years old when she broke her foot going down a slide, restricting her from her favorite activities like dance and soccer.

But, even after her foot had healed, Anderson wasn’t herself — she was exhausted. Tasks like walking up a flight of stairs wore her out. Her parents thought she was depressed, and even made her stop reading the “Harry Potter” series, claiming it was too dark for a fifth grader.

When her doctor claimed it was just puberty, she came back the next day. Only this time they had a diagnosis — type 1 diabetes.

She spent the next day at Children’s Mercy Hospital, getting run-downs from specialist after specialist on her new diagnosis. What it meant. What devices she would use. It didn’t make sense to Anderson, the only information she was able to process was that she would be getting a phone — her silver lining.

Pricking her finger up to 12 times a day, using a test strip and inserting it into a glucose monitor to check her blood sugar level became a new part of her routine. Her elementary school nurse even made her show her homeroom class this process so they would see what a new part of her daily life would be. This was the first time Anderson had felt embarrassed about her diagnosis.

“I remember pricking my finger, and this kid was making a scene about the blood,” Anderson said. “He was like ‘Oh my God. I can’t do blood. Like, that’s so gross’ and I was just standing there, and I was like this is my life now, and you’re throwing a fit that I do it once in front of you, and it’s just a little blood on my finger.”

From then on, she became hyper-conscious of where she was placing her monitor in an attempt to avoid the dreaded question of “What’s on you?”

In middle school, Anderson noticed how everyone around her tried to fit in, so she did too. Her insulin pump patch on her arm was different though — other people didn’t have it. Her peers would try to use her personal diabetes manager as a phone and take pictures, they didn’t realize that was what ensured she could safely eat a meal. She would cover her pump with a sweatshirt if it was on her arm in an attempt to hide it, she didn’t need people staring.

Anderson is now a dance teacher at her studio and is used to the question from her first and second grade hip-hop students of why she has a device on her arm. She doesn’t mind, they’re just curious, she simply tells them it’s medicine — they move on in less than two seconds.

She’s not embarrassed anymore. She wants others to be informed and know that she can never take a break from her type 1. It’s a part of her. It’s like clockwork now, repeating the motions daily of her insulin dosing and monitoring her levels. Before every meal she considers how it could affect her blood sugar, how it will make her feel in the next hour and if she’ll be able to drive her car because her blood sugar may drop too low.

“I’ve been doing this seven years straight since I turned 10,” Anderson said. “Just because you don’t see me taking care of it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. I’ve just gotten better at it, but it’s a lot of work.”