Living with type 1 diabetes

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Six-year-old Eden Speaks of Lafayette attends kindergarten at Murdock Elementary School, and all too often, her classmates ask her the same question.

"They ask what the pink thing is on my side, but I tell them a pump," said Eden. "They ask the same question over and over again sometimes."

Eden suffers from Type 1 diabetes, which occurs when your body stops making insulin.

Eden was diagnosed with diabetes when she was 4 years old, and her mother Brittany said, she clearly remembers the day it happened.

"She was sitting watching television and just seemed lethargic, like, just staring at the wall, wouldn't even respond to us," said Brittany.

Brittany said when they got to the hospital, Eden's blood sugar was close to 500. For a child her age, Brittany said it's supposed to be between 80 and 120.

Andrew Riggs is the Director of Pediatric Diabetes at Peyton Manning Children's Hospital in Indianapolis. Riggs said one in 500 kids in the United States suffer from type 1 diabetes.

"Those children get diabetes through no fault of their own, it's an autoimmune disease typically," said Riggs. "So, they start urinating excessively, losing weight. We don't know what causes type 1 diabetes, other than the fact that the body starts to destroy it's own ability to make insulin."

Riggs said there is no treatment for type 1 diabetes, but it can be controlled through insulin injections or an insulin pump.

For Eden, that's something she said is just another part of her daily life.

"When my mom and dad stopped taking my shots, I learned how to do it myself, and I wasn't scared," said Eden.

Eden is right. Scary shouldn't be a word used to define type 1 diabetes, and type 1 diabetes shouldn't be the word used to define Eden.

"Kids with type 1 diabetes can do anything that virtually anybody else can do, they just need to check their blood sugar and take insulin on a regular basis," said Riggs. "What they want the rest of us to know, is that this disease, diabetes, doesn't define who they are."