By: Melody Wallace
The holidays bring several months that offer an abundance of sweet candy treats, large indulgent meals, and homemade baked goods. These temptations are difficult for even the most disciplined of individuals to resist. The circumstances are even more difficult for someone living with diabetes. Once someone has been diagnosed with diabetes; every carb, every ounce of sugar, every bit of insulin, matters to their overall health and wellness on a daily basis. Doctors Michael Fowler and Andrew Bremer, both endocrinologists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, see and diagnose hundreds of patients a year. Recently a patient wrote of her journey with diabetes in such an inspiring way that the doctors felt inclined to request that it be published in the monthly medical annals. The response to the published article was such a positive and powerful one that they have now asked the patient to speak to families at the upcoming Diabetes Family Fun Day event at the end of October, and to medical students at the university in November. These events would be exciting opportunities to educate others for any adult dealing with diabetes, but what makes this story even more remarkable is that the patient who wrote the article was a 12-year-old girl.
Sydney Speed is a beautiful, athletic seventh grader at Daviess County Middle School that was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes at the age of seven. Her parents first noticed that something was wrong when she complained of constant thirst, headaches, and being tired often. She recalls times where she “came home, got a water bottle, and laid on my bed.” On sunny days, when she would typically want to go outside and enjoy the weather, she found that all she wanted to do was sit inside and watch television. Sydney said sometimes she would drink a Dr. Pepper or eat some Skittles in an effort to try and relieve the symptoms, when in reality the increase in sugar actually made the symptoms worse. In the midst of Sydney’s symptoms, her mother had a conversation with another mother whose child had diabetes. It was then that the pieces started to come together so that they could finally find a solution. After a short hospital stay in Owensboro, and a trip to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Sydney’s family began the journey of a family with a child diagnosed with diabetes.
Vanderbilt gave Sydney a bear named “Rufus” so that she could practice giving him the injections that she would soon need to self-inject. From there, she and her family established habits and routines to help control her sugar levels. At age 13, diabetes has become such a routine part of Sydney’s life that she makes each step look effortless. During the school day she routinely checks her blood sugar levels, calculates the carbohydrates of each meal, recognizes when she feels low, knows when to take a few glucose tablets, and when to visit the school nurse. After school, she is an active member of both the girls’ volleyball and basketball teams, as she has been for several years. She is also part of the Student Technology Leadership Program, a writer for the school Panther Press newspaper, a member of the Elite Panthers, Student Council, and Academic Team.
When asked if she has ever had a bad day or a day where she wishes she had never been diagnosed, Sydney says that when she is sick or has a stomach bug, her blood sugar will get low and stay low. In the past some of those moments have caused her to briefly think, “I don’t ever want to see another piece of sugar in my life.” Aside from those infrequent times, Sydney handles her diagnosis with grace. When others ask questions about her daily routine or some of the things that she has to deal with, she will usually tell anyone anything they want to know. She is honest and forthright about her feelings while still maintaining a positive outlook. As she stated in her article in the June 2013 edition of the Pediatric Annals, “Diabetes is a blessing in some cases, such as mine, because it gives me ambitions, dreams, and goals in life…Diabetes is like a pit bull. It gets a bad reputation that it doesn’t always deserve. Having diabetes doesn’t make you any different than anyone else. In fact, it makes you extraordinary. With diabetes, I do all the things that all my friends and family do. It never holds me back and never will. It has helped shape me into who I am today and it has helped to sculpt who I want to be when I’m an adult.”