Bitter, sweet disease

Juvenile diabetes alters lifestyle of the entire family

In retrospect, it probably started a few months before the fateful trip to Hawaii. Will Franzen, 10, had dropped a little weight. (His mother thought: He's growing!) He seemed to be drinking a lot of water. (It's hot outside!)

He'd begun wetting his bed. (Surely, just a stage!)

But throughout the spring, Teresa Franzen, the head of the Triangle's massive Race for the Cure, was so absorbed in the final preparations and execution of the event, she had rationalized all the warning signs away.

Then the race was over. Franzen turned over the reins of leadership and began to refocus on day-to-day life.

It was on the long plane trip to Hawaii in July that it finally hit home.

She had packed plenty of water, Gatorade and Propel; her daughter Alexandra, 14, would sip, but Will would glug down the entire bottle -- and ask for another.

What's more, he was hopping up from his seat every 10 minutes to use the restroom.

At one point, Franzen followed him and "accidentally" cracked open the door to the restroom to hear whether the stream of urine was heavy. It was.

She came back down the aisle and slumped into the seat next to her mother: "Do you think Will has diabetes?"

"Don't even say it!" her mother cried.

But of course, the answer was yes.

By the end of the week, Will was barely eating. He suffered crushing headaches. And he simply couldn't get enough fluids.

He threw up on the way to the emergency room.

Learning curve

So began the Franzens' education in Type I, or Juvenile, diabetes.

They quickly learned the difference between Type I and Type II. Unlike Type II, which is at epidemic levels, Type I is not caused by being overweight, eating the wrong foods, or failing to exercise. It is a chronic autoimmune disease that begins when the pancreas stops producing insulin, the stuff that helps the body process sugar.

As Courtney Davies, with the Triangle Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation puts it: "It is a life sentence. It never goes away."

Franzen knew more than the average parent because a friend's child has the disease as well.

But hearing about, and living, the life of a Type I diabetic are two different things, said Jean Litton, a diabetes educator with Duke University Health System who has worked closely with the Franzens since July.

"To say it is a disease that afflicts the entire family is no exaggeration," Litton says.

Before Will could be released from the hospital in Hawaii, Franzen had to learn to use a glucometer to test his blood sugar, then to calculate the amount of insulin needed and administer it.

Every kid's worst nightmare compounded: Shots. Given by your mom.

Franzen wasn't too thrilled about the idea either.

She had practiced on oranges and on herself, but as she brought the needle down, Will screamed.

She hadn't even touched him.

He started laughing. "Gotcha," he said.

Even as he has become a living pincushion -- six or more shots a day, most in the stomach or the rear -- he has never so much as whimpered. Never complained.

The lifestyle changes, in some ways, were more intense.

The amount of insulin injected is determined as a ratio to the number of carb units consumed. So every morsel of food Will eats is recorded, its carbohydrate content counted and computed.

Franzen bought a high-tech scale to make the measurements as precise as possible. Every baked potato Will eats needs to be weighed and calculated for carb content first.

"I used to think I was bad at math," says Franzen. "I'm not. Will's not either."

One week this fall, Will's class was planning a party at school. The featured menu item: cupcakes.