Area youths raising awareness, funds for Juvenile Diabetes

Brian McLean

of the Gateway

Liam Kelly realizes now he probably looked pale. A year ago, the 14-year-old Gig Harbor boy started to lose weight. It wasn’t dramatic, but his thirst was: Despite continually asking his mother for Gatorade and chocolate milk, he couldn’t satisfy his body.

Last January, it made sense.

About a week before the Super Bowl, the eighth-grade football player at Annie Wright School in Tacoma was diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes, the Type 1 form of the disease that forces patients to depend on insulin in order to process food.

Kelly isn’t alone. More than 13,000 children in the country are diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes each year, and as many as 3 million Americans have the disease.

But Kelly remains active, and a group of other Puget Sound-area youths are raising awareness through the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in hopes that their efforts eventually will lead to a cure.

This weekend, some of their work will be on display at the Festival of Trees in Tacoma, where several students from Bellarmine Prep in Tacoma will show off their “Polar Express Christmas” creation as part of the second annual South Sound Gingerbread Village.

Bellarmine art teacher Laurie Dahl Isacson and European pastry chef Krissie Bowman, who also is the cook at Bellarmine, worked with many other volunteers for more than 100 hours each to create a replica of the mountain in the animated movie.

One of those volunteers is Gabby Rhett, an 18-year-old senior at Bellarmine who was diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes nearly a decade ago. When Rhett went into the hospital that year, she had rapidly lost nearly 30 pounds, dropping her body weight to 67 pounds as a 9-year-old.

“I went to a sleepover, and when I came home, I slept for like a day and a half,” Rhett said. “My mom is a doctor, and she said, ‘Suck it up, you’ll be fine.’ ”

Rhett shrugs it off now, but she wound up spending a couple of days in an intensive-care unit, and she laughed when her classmate David Rurik said his blood sugar was 380 milligrams per deciliter when he was diagnosed two years ago.

“My blood sugar had to have been twice that,” Rhett said.

A normal range is between 70 and 120 mg/dL, but because someone with the autoimmune disorder can’t regularly process the energy from food, they must continually check their blood sugar level throughout the day and adjust by taking insulin, eating or modifying their behavior just to survive.

Some children with Juvenile Diabetes turn to sports because they say the activity helps them manage the disease. Both Rhett and Rurik, a 17-year-old senior at Bellarmine, compete with the school’s rowing team.

“When I’m active on a consistent basis, it helps control the diabetes,” Rurik said.

Kelly, who hopes to play freshman football in high school next fall, agreed.

“You know (your blood sugar) will eventually go down later, though,” he said.

Rurik, also a soccer player, said he started noticing he was fatigued up to two weeks before he was diagnosed when he was 15.

“I was the goalkeeper, and I noticed when I was punting the ball, I just didn’t have the strength,” he said.

At the time, he also lost a considerable amount of weight — he’d gone from 165 pounds to 128 — and he estimates he drank 2 1/2 gallons of water a day.

“Two days later, I was back to 150 to 155,” he said. “Most of it is water weight.”

Kelly considers himself lucky: He’s only had to deal with one extreme instance when his blood sugar dipped too low. A diabetic can actually fall into a coma — and possibly die — if his or her blood sugar gets too low or too high.

Lisa Kelly, Liam’s mother, said her son can eat through his sleep and not remember it. One management option is to take glucose tablets, which is something 11-year-old Drew Pepin of University Place occasionally does.

Pepin, whose mother, Kim, is the immediate past president of JDRF’s South Sound Board, was diagnosed when he was 5. Every three months, the football and basketball player goes to Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma for a checkup.

Kim Pepin said Drew spent five days in the hospital at the outset of the disease, but most of that time wasn’t because he needed to be stabilized.

“It’s more to help the parents know how to take care of their kids,” she said.

While each person learns individual responsibilities, which include poking a finger several times a day and processing a drop of blood to check their glucose levels, parents say they worry more about long-term effects.

“You want everything for your kid — whether it be football or sleepovers — you want them to have a normal life,” Lisa Kelly said. “You want to find the balance between safety and finding their independence, that they’re still Gabby or David or Liam, not just someone with diabetes.”

Kelly added that she is often fatigued because she gets up a couple of times during the night to check Liam’s blood-sugar level.

“I do it just to make sure, because sometimes kids will go low in the middle of the night and not know it,” she said.

Liam’s one “low” instance was when his blood sugar reached 40 mg/dL. Rhett said she wakes up if her level reaches 45-50.

Drew Pepin, who once slept through an earthquake, said he feels “cold on the inside, hot on the outside.”

And then there’s the problem of rebounding, when someone overcompensates for low blood sugar by eating too much, which could cause the level to rise higher than it should.

“What you want is to avoid a low blood sugar at all costs, but the problem is, insulin is stupid,” Kim Pepin said. “It’s a constant worry. And it’s not just today’s worry, but you have to worry about 20 years from now, 30 years from now.”

Pepin said that often means a “loss of spontaneity.”

“Everything has to be executed with a plan,” she said.

Rurik counted off the number of different things he has to remember when he leaves his house. It included supplies like glucose tablets or “chewy bars,” testing supplies and knowledge of his plan for the day so he can plan accordingly.

It may even affect test scores: The Kellys say Liam checks his blood sugar before taking any kind of an exam, and he circles the number at the top of his test for comparison.

Rhett and Rurik will face another obstacle next year when they leave home for college. Last week, Rhett was waiting to hear on possible acceptance at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and Rurik plans to attend Whitworth University in Spokane.

But before they get that far, they’ll have an opportunity to support JDRF through the South Sound Gingerbread Village, which includes Bellarmine’s “Polar Express” mountain and seven other designs, plus the 22nd annual Festival of Trees at the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center.

Dahl Isacson, the art teacher who lives in Gig Harbor, said the concept was to make “Polar Express Christmas” using all-edible items. After molds were made, gingerbread pieces were baked and curved into all kids of shapes, and the structure was glued together with “Royal Icing.”

The mountain was finished with a gingerbread train, complete with lights threaded through it.

The students even had an expert on hand in Bowman, who runs her own business called The Last Bite Fine European Desserts.

“She said she would do it as long as kids are involved,” Dahl Isacson said. “As long as it’s a team effort.”

A ‘Polar Express’ Christmas

The second annual JDRF South Sound Gingerbread Village has partnered with Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital to help raise money for juvenile diabetes research and critical care services.

The “Polar Express” gingerbread house was designed and created by students from Bellarmine Prep and The Last Bite Fine European Desserts.

Team members include: Krissie Bowman, Laurie Dahl Isacson, Katie Bowman, Karen Musica, Ali Musica, Gabby Rhett, Lauren Rockwell, Sarah Lovejoy, Lindsey Neutzman, Shayna Pepin, Kate Donahue and Katie Dashiel.

Festival of Trees

The South Sound Gingerbread Village and nearly 70 decorated trees will be on display this weekend at the 22nd annual Mary Bridge Festival of Trees at the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center, 1500 Broadway in Tacoma.

Tickets are $6 for general admission, $2 for students 13 to 18, and free for children 12 and younger.

Volunteers from the Puget Sound region have designed trees with a myriad of gifts, including a Lexus CS Convertible, two Vespa LX 150 motor scooters or trips to Portugal, Rome or New York City. The festival, with a “Celebrate the Wonder” theme, also will feature live entertainment, a well-stocked gift shop, free photos with Santa and more.

Since its inception in 1987, the festival has raised more than $14.6 million for Mary Bridge services.

The festival will be open to the public during the following days:

Thursday — 5 to 9 p.m.

Saturday — 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Sunday — 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Proceeds from the event will benefit “Tree House: A Place for Families.” Tree House will be located in a renovated building near the hospital. It will house families whose children are receiving care.

Currently, there are 12 apartments available, but Tree House plans to expand to 44 units.

For more information, call 253-403-3095 or visit www.marybridge.org/fot.

Reach Editor Brian McLean at 253-853-9245 or by e-mail at brian.mclean@gateline.com.