One family, One Walk in Atlanta juvenile diabetes

Fifteen-year-old Vanessa Enamorado is just like any other teenage girl, said her mother Belinda.

“We’ll be in a store, and because she’s a teenager she’ll be mouthing off and I’ll look at her and say, ‘You’d better be high or you’re in trouble.’ And I say it before I think about it,” she said. High, in this case, is high blood sugar.

Vanessa’s good friend, Jasmine Ussery, said she also has to deal with her moods now and then.

“If we’re out in public, I’ll tell her, ‘Vanessa, you’re acting high,’ and people will look at us and I’ll say, ‘No, no, no; it’s not that kind of high.’”

“And it’s funny because we’ll get it,” said Vanessa.

“We can laugh about it, and you have to sometimes,” said Belinda. “You just can’t let it take over.”

“It” is Type 1 diabetes, something Vanessa was diagnosed with when she was 5 years old.

The Perry High School student and her family will be participating in a fundraising walk Oct. 17 at Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park, the JDRF One Walk. The event will benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

“Going up there and doing the walk, it’s like we’re representing our family and all the children here, raising money for them,” Belinda said.

Vanessa said she remembers when she first was told of the diagnosis.

“I kind of remember how life was before, but since I was so young it’s been kind of normal, this is my life – taking shots of insulin,” she said. “I was scared at first.”

She’s not a shy, retiring type, said her mother.

“She’s a trooper, and she handles Type 1 like nobody’s business. She handles everything so quickly,” said Belinda. “She does everything that everybody else does; she just has to do a little more work. She has to plan.”

And she has plans for life after high school.

“I actually want to become an endocrinologist,” Vanessa said. “I know that my endocrinologists are well educated, but I just feel they’ll never understand what I’m going through unless they have it, and I want to be that person for somebody that has been through it.”

She initially considered hair or cosmetology, she said, but the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to be somebody that can be there for someone.

“I know my endocrinologists know what they’re talking about, but I feel they don’t understand completely, especially during the teen years when you’re going through the changes in your body and how that affects your blood sugar, and the feeling of ‘I don’t want to have diabetes anymore so I won’t check my blood or take my insulin,’” she said. “Especially being a teen girl, the whole ‘I want to be skinny and lose weight.’ One of my endocrinologists told me that if you don’t do a lot of insulin, you’ll get skinny and lose weight. So that put in my head that I won’t use insulin at all and I’ll stay skinny.”

Her mother said that attitude is a condition called diabulemia, where teenage girls stop taking insulin because it makes one gain weight.

“I remember when they told me about Vanessa I was saying, ‘What are you talking about? She’s only 5 years old, she’s skinny, she’s not sedentary, she’s an active kid, and that’s when I got a crash course in Type 1,” Belinda said. “Type 1 is not a new disease; the pancreas stops producing insulin, and it has nothing to do with diet, lifestyle and all that.”

Vanessa still gets asked about her diet and gets suggestions from well-meaning people, Belinda said, adding that an awareness of diabetes will help.

“All of us should eat a healthy diet, all of us should cut back on sugars as much as we can,” she said. She was recently diagnosed as being pre-Type 2 diabetic. “But we have to watch our sugar much more than they do because they have insulin to cover it. With them it’s more of an issue of moderation, whereas we have to be much more restricted.”

Vanessa has to take a shot of insulin every time she has a meal. Belinda said she takes a minimum of four shots every day, sometimes more. There’s one insulin shot she takes in the mornings, a long-lasting one that stays with her all day.

“One way of looking at it is it really organizes your life,” said Belinda.

Blood sugar levels are a constant concern.

“I went to work, and as soon as I got there I checked my blood sugar like I normally do, and it was low,” said Vanessa. “I had to stand off to the side and eat food and stuff like that for it to finally come up to a decent range for me to be able to work and not have it come back down.”

It took 45 minutes before she could return to work. Her employer knows of her situation and works with her, Belinda said. “She’s been at Daisy Patch Florist on Macon Road in Perry for about a year. Penny (Stapleton) is her boss and Penny’s been real good to her.”

One thing that shows promise for Vanessa in the future is the artificial pancreas. It’s essentially an insulin pump with a continuous glucose monitor.

“They call it ‘closing the loop,’” Belinda said. “You’ll wear it and you won’t have to think anymore. It’s programmed, has an algorithm and operates like a pancreas. And they think they’re three to five years from getting FDA approval.”

Vanessa is on a list to come to Atlanta and wear an artificial pancreas for about a week.

“I’ve talked to people from Boston who have worn one and they say it’s amazing to go about life and eat something like pizza or a brownie or a cheeseburger and it just did everything for them,” Belinda said.

“That would be weird,” Vanessa said.

For more information about the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, call Belinda at 678-891-8196, or visit www.georgia.jdrf.org.

Vanessa is also on facebook, at Vanessa’s Vision For A Cure.

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