Dixon freshman plays on through juvenile diabetes

Alex T. Paschal/SVS Dixon soccer player Hannah Sharkey runs sprints with her team Thursday afternoon at the school. Sharkey, who has juvenile diabetes, keeps an eye on her health while on the field.

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Hannah Sharkey was slipping away before her parents' eyes during the summer of 2004. In a matter of weeks, the happy pre-teen they'd known and loved was disappearing behind a stupor of drowsiness and lethargy.

The 11-year-old could hardly drag herself out of bed, much less play soccer, the sport she'd loved nearly her whole life.

She was tired but rarely slept during the night - or any other time.

She was taking in more water than a fish, but her thirst was never quenched.

She couldn't eat, lost 17 pounds in less than three months.

"It was really scary," Hannah's mother, Brenda Sharkey, said. "She was always into athletics, and she was a little chubby at the beginning of the summer, but losing that much weight was not good. We thought she had the flu."

Then came those two straight nights. The ones during which Brenda and Hannah stayed up from dusk till dawn, Hannah bouncing between lethargy and restlessness. After the second night, it was time to get help.

Hannah entered the hospital. A blood test showed her blood-sugar level, which should normally be between 70 and 150, was in the 600s. This made the diagnosis relatively easy: Hannah had Type 1 diabetes, better known as juvenile diabetes.

"I had started to suspect that it was going to be diabetes," Brenda said. "She just had a lot of the symptoms that I knew diabetics usually had."

The news came as a shock to Hannah.

"I was diagnosed August 30, 2004, I'll never forget that date," Hannah said. "They didn't have an answer for why I was diagnosed with it. I just kind of dealt with it. This last year has been hard with the change of schools and some of my body changes."

Juvenile diabetes is a condition in which the body doesn't produce enough insulin, which controls the level of glucose or sugar in the blood. The extra levels of sugar wreak havoc on internal organs.

"It's really very scary when it's not under control," Brenda said. "When left untreated, diabetes can be a fatal disease."

Coping with the diagnosis was one hurdle. Living with it has been a series of hurdles of varying heights.

For the first two years, Hannah took several shots of insulin a day and constantly checked her blood-sugar.

Within the last year, she has switched from shots to an insulin pump, which delivers insulin 24 hours a day through a catheter placed under the skin. It regulates the amount of insulin provided depending on need.

"The pump has made a big difference for her," Brenda said. "You could tell that there were days when taking all the shots and checking the sugar all of the time just got her. It got to us watching her have to do it. This has freed her up a lot."

Hannah, now a freshman at Dixon, is a two-sport athlete in basketball and soccer. She was one of 12 freshmen to go out for the soccer team, and she will be one of possibly four freshmen who will start on varsity.

"I've been playing soccer since I was 5," Hannah said. "It's something I've always loved. My older sister (Camila) played here, and she was good. So now I want to try and be better than she was."

Hannah has played club soccer for the Rockford Dactyls the last couple years. One of the girls on that team was Brittlyn Dillow, another Duchesses freshman.

Sharkey and Dillow have been close friends for years. Dillow was with Hannah when she first found out she was diabetic.

"Everything changed when we found out she had diabetes," Dillow said. "She couldn't eat everything all of a sudden. So when she comes over to my house, we get special food for her. It was a big change."

Dillow became one of the first of many people around Dixon that had their eyes opened about diabetes. Dillow became one of Hannah's top supporters and learned what to do if Hannah started to struggle with spikes or plunges in her blood sugar.

"I can tell sometimes even before she does when she's having a low or something," Dillow said. "I always know where her Gatorade is and her glucose tablets. I've never given her a shot, but I know where it is in her bag if she would need it."

"It's great to have that support," Hannah said. "Brittlyn's been great and she's helped teach other people. It's just helps me not feel so alone or different from everybody else."

The knowledge has paid dividends for Dillow.

"It's kind of weird, we started talking about juvenile diabetes in health class earlier this year and I already knew like half the stuff we were talking about. I've learned a lot."

Dixon soccer coach Mahmoud Etemadi and the rest of Duchess soccer team has spent part of the spring learning about the disease to better understand how it affects Hannah.

"I've learned a lot about it," Etemadi said. "I've told her not even to wait to tell me if she needs to stop during practice. Just to do it. I've been taught what things I can do to help if she needs it. Brittlyn is also a great help."

"Mahmoud has really been great," Brenda said. "There are other coaches on some of the other teams she's gone out for since she's been diagnosed that wouldn't play her because they were afraid something would happen. He hasn't done that at all. He's gone out of his way to learn. Her friends have been great, too, with helping her watch her diet and being supportive."

Now Hannah has become a positive example for her schoolmates, teachers and coaches.

"There are just a lot things people think about diabetes that aren't true," Hannah said. "They think you only get it if you're fat, which isn't true. They think that you can't ever eat sugar, which is wrong, you just have to watch how much. They you think you can't play sports. I can play sports."