Playing Through

Most children only need to worry about school assignments and fitting in that extra hour of play before the sun hides behind the horizon.
Most children certainly do not have to worry about complicated blood-sugar levels and injecting needles into themselves.

Emily Knight and Korey Anderson were not most children.
Knight, now a regular contributor for the Colton girls basketball team, and Anderson, now the starting point guard for the Colton boys team, found out they had juvenile diabetes when they were kids.

That means that worrying about their blood-sugar and poking themselves with needles became a part of their everyday lives. Take out the trash, do your homework and adjust the amount of insulin you need to take for the turkey you are about to eat.

“There is no cure,” Knight says. “It means that your body doesn’t produce any insulin so you have to take it in injections.”

Juvenile diabetes, also known as type 1 diabetes, is not to be confused with type 2 diabetes. According to the American Diabetes Association, type 2 diabetes can largely be managed by adjusting diet and being active, and is the result of the body’s inability to use insulin effectively; type 1, or juvenile, diabetes denotes a body’s failure to produce insulin at all. Insulin is a hormone that converts sugars, starches and other foods into energy that the body can use in day to day activity.

The reason that type 1 diabetes is commonly known as juvenile diabetes is that it most often comes on in children and young adults. For Knight and Anderson, they found out at a very young age.

“I was eight years old, it came on really gradually, I was just really thirsty and eventually I was so weak they took me to the doctor,” Knight says.

Knight’s mother, Laura also remembers the condition coming on gradually, but when things started getting very serious she rushed her in to see someone.

“It even got to the point where she was having trouble breathing so we knew we should really check it out,” Laura says. “And just on the basis of one blood test they knew exactly what it was.”

For Anderson, the onset of the disease came on at a later age.

“I was in fifth grade and I was just at football practice one day and I felt sick,” Anderson remembers. On that day his mother, Mary, came to practice to bring him a piece of football gear that he had forgotten and she immediately saw that something was wrong with her son; he looked emaciated.

“He looked really pale and he just didn’t look right,” Mary Anderson says. When they took him into the hospital, the doctor had a hunch right away. After a few tests, they knew that he had type 1 diabetes. Korey spent one day in intensive care at Legacy Emanuel Hospital.

A Shift in Life

Circumstances in life can shift reality. Finding out that you or someone you love has a disease like type 1 diabetes is one such circumstance.

“It was a shock,” Laura says. “It was a condition that was not only life-threatening but it would be with her for her whole life. We just had to deal with it. It was about a year and a half after she had lost her dad so I wanted to do everything I could to make it easy for her.”

For the Anderson’s, it was a point where they knew that the rest of their lives would be changed.

“I had seen that before, so at least from my perspective having that hit so close to home is akin to someone showing up on an accident and seeing someone they know,” Korey’s father, Kevin Anderson, who has been a Emergency Medical Technician for 20 years, recalls. “I immediately started thinking about the amount of work it was going to be. It was a moment I knew that our life and his life had changed completely. I knew that Mary and the rest of our family didn’t know the long-term complications associated with it, and I did. I was probably feeling a little more sick-to-my-stomach about what was in store for him.”

Korey’s mother felt the same shifting of reality.

“It was kind of like my world dropped,” Mary remembers. “I had never known anyone who was diabetic and so it was a shock. I just remember walking in a zone, it was so unreal.”
With the support of their friends and family, both Korey and Emily have been able to step up to the new challenges and meet them head-on with a good attitude. The two have taken on their diabetes and have made it a part of their everyday life.

Bright Spots

Emily Knight and Korey Anderson are two of the nicest kids anyone will have the pleasure of meeting; they just happen to have diabetes. They are optimistic about the challenges in their lives and work every day to manage them; but they do not go about it on their own.

“I didn’t really have any fear because of all of the support I had from my family and friends,” Emily says. Emily has five brothers and sisters starting with Jessie 24, Karissa 23, Kasey 19, Sarah 13, and Anjuli 11.

Shortly after Emily was diagnosed, Laura made each member of the family inject her with insulin at least once so they knew what to do in case of emergency.

“The first thing that we did was we made everybody in the family aware of what to do (if Emily needed an injection of insulin) and each one of them had to give her a shot at one point,” Laura says.

Juvenile diabetes has not held them back in basketball. They test their blood-sugar levels before games and sometimes at halftime, but they can usually feel when something is off.

“You feel like throwing up,” Emily says. “If I have a low blood-sugar (level) then I can’t concentrate at all so I have to have juice right away.”

“I feel really sick and I get tired easier,” Korey says.

Korey uses insulin pens, needles inside of a casing that make injections easier, and he counts up the carbohydrates in whatever food he is about to eat and then injects the appropriate amount of insulin into his system.

Emily uses an insulin pump, a gift from her uncle, which consistently puts the appropriate amount of insulin into her system throughout the day. She takes the pump off when she is showering or in games and practices.

Korey and Emily have had slip-ups taking care of their diabetes. One summer Korey was at a basketball camp and he miscounted his carbohydrates.

“We were getting ready to play and right before the game I felt my blood sugar plummet and I had to drink an energy drink and sit out for the whole first half,” Korey says.

Before the season began, Colton boys basketball coach Greg Adams was a little concerned about not having a back-up point guard in case something happened to Korey. However Korey has responded by making it a non-issue for the season.

“It has never bothered him all year, he has been able to play every game,” Adams said. “He has stepped up.”

Making it Normal

Living with juvenile diabetes is something that Korey and Emily have taken responsibility of.

“He (Korey) never complained about it, he never said, ‘why me,’ he just figured, ‘this is how God wanted me to be,’” Korey’s mother Mary says.

“She (Emily) knew that it was a very serious thing and that she had to deal with it,” Emily’s mother Laura says. “I am sure there were times that she was saddened that she had to deal with it and that she was different than others but on the whole she has had a really positive outlook on it.”

Emily and Korey took over the responsibility of caring for themselves sooner rather than later.

“My mom did it all at first, but within a year I was doing everything by myself,” Emily says.

It was important for Laura that her daughter learned how to take care of herself as soon as possible.

“We wanted her to have the freedom to go away from us and we wanted to get her independent as soon as we could,” she says.

The Day to Day

Living with diabetes is just another aspect of life for Korey, and in the long-run has probably made them stronger people.

“For me it was kind of an epiphany,” Korey’s father Kevin says. “I think that for me to look at him and see what he is doing at his age, he truly is my hero because he does things that I couldn’t do.”

Emily’s mother Laura agrees.

“She is just terrific,” she says. “She has done such a great job. She is proactive and she doesn’t sit around and feel sorry for herself.”

However positively both kids take on the challenges associated with having type 1 diabetes, there are still hardships associated with the condition.

“I’m still sometimes nervous about doing it in public, so I will use the bathroom or something,” Korey says.

Emily is a little bit more open and talks to whoever wants to about her condition.

“I tell them offhand,” she says. “They will ask me what I am doing when I am taking my blood-sugar. They are really curious about it because a lot of people don’t know about it. People stare sometimes, but they are pretty cool. I have gotten used to it so it is not a big deal.”

Sometimes it is hard for the people closest to Emily and Korey to watch them do things that most other teenagers do not have to worry about.

“It hurts to see him take so many shots and yet I have to remember that there are some people with things far worse,” Korey’s mother Mary says. “This is something where he can live and have a long life as long as he is on top of it.”

The Future

The medical field is something that both Emily and Korey want to enter in to. Emily wants to be a doctor and Korey wants to be an EMT like his father.

No matter how their futures turn out, both already have significant life victories under their belts.

“It goes beyond being proud, it speaks to his character,” Korey’s father Kevin says of the way his son has dealt with diabetes. “I always think of a man’s character as what you do when people aren’t watching, and how you deal with life, and he has far exceeded those expectations at an early age.”

Both players participate in an annual walk and run to raise money for diabete’s research.

“It is important to get as much support as we can for it,” Emily says.

They have also inspired members of the community.

Two years ago, Korey’s sister Nicole, raised almost 900 dollars for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Hopes, Dreams

When circumstances change and realities shift, the future is not spared from the revision. Korey and Emily’s parents wish for what most parents wish for their children—success, happiness and love—but they also hope for other things.

“Well of course we are all holding out for a cure,” Emily’s mother Laura says. “And it seems like whenever we hear news they are getting closer and closer. I want her to stay active and keep her blood sugar low, and she is going to make it by golly!”

There is also some measure good that can be taken from the experience as it has brought the families closer together.

“We are probably closer than he would like sometimes,” Korey’s father Kevin says. “As a teenager you would sometimes like to distance yourself from your parents a little.”

Sure most teenagers their age can eat burgers, fries and sodas whenever they like and not have to deal with insulin and blood-sugar levels but Emily and Korey are not most teenagers. They are an aspiring doctor and EMT, basketball players and people—young people that just happen to have type 1 diabetes.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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