Students share diabetes story (5/9/03)

FORT RECOVERY — When Fort Recovery Middle School students Danielle Wendel and Jordan Hess found out they were diabetic earlier this school year, they had the same reaction.

“What is diabetes?”

Then, even after they learned about the disease, they didn’t want a single person at school to know about their condition. They were shy, withdrawn and scared of what other students might say or think. But with the school’s annual awareness week quickly approaching last month, they got an idea.

They decided to tell everybody.

Wendel approached middle school principal Ted Shuttleworth, and told him she wanted to think of some way to raise money for diabetes research. Shuttleworth saw a unique opportunity to tie in a diabetes fund-raiser along with the school’s awareness week, and both students loved the idea.

For Wendel and Hess, it was a coming out party. They’ve spent the majority of this week teaching and quizzing students on the effects and symptoms of diabetes. They explained the way their diet has changed drastically and what it’s like to have to take between three and six shots of insulin per day. And almost without realizing it, they’ve gone from running away from the disease to confronting it head-on.

“At first I didn’t want anybody to know, and I wanted the people I told to keep it secret,” Wendel, who found out about her condition in September of 2002, said. “But after I came back from Riley (Hospital for Children), I was just thinking ‘Well, everybody is going to have to know sooner or later.’ I’m still a little worried about it, but it was better after awhile.”

The school started its fund-raiser with a “Dimes for Diabetes” campaign — charging students 10 cents for “offenses” like eating an unhealthy breakfast food or wearing colorful clothing. On Thursday they had a “dime stall,” where each classroom teacher would delay class while they counted the number of donations students brought to class. One class raised just under $200 in dimes alone, while another group of students had an exam delayed because they were counting for so long.

“What is so neat is that when both of these kids were identified as being diabetic, they just went into complete denial,” Shuttleworth said. “And suddenly they have made a major turn and they want everybody to know about diabetes.”

“I didn’t tell anybody,” Hess said, who after finding out about his condition in January, is still making changes. “It was mainly the shots and stuff that concerned me most. I have to take them three times a day now.”

“He’s very quiet,” Shuttleworth said of Hess. “And he probably would prefer to keep things very quiet. But Danielle threw in her enthusiasm, and that’s kind of thrown Jordan out of his shell.”

Originally, the school had set out to raise $700 for the American Diabetes Association. That much cash was donated by mid-week. The school had gathered just around $1,000 even before this morning’s festivities, when “Basketball Jones” brought his trick-shooting show to town, which Shuttleworth said would be the biggest money maker of the week.

“They’re all finally starting to understand,” Wendel said of her fellow students. “I’ve always wanted to be one of those diabetic advocates, where you actually get to travel and tell people about it. But I’ve always wondered what it would be like to go into a room with strangers and tell them about your whole entire life basically. I’ve always wanted to do that, and maybe I’ll do it when I get older. But not now.”[[In-content Ad]]