FAY­OLA K J FRAS­ER

Kim Kir­ton, a 38-year-old pro­fes­sion­al has been di­a­bet­ic for more years of her life than she has not. Kir­ton, a mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al, with a BA (Hons) in Me­dia & Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and MA (Dist) in Ad­ver­tis­ing and Mar­ket­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leeds has spent the last 28 years suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gat­ing her life, ed­u­ca­tion, ca­reer and re­la­tion­ships with Type 1 di­a­betes.

Kir­ton man­ages her own strug­gle with the ill­ness but al­so rais­es aware­ness sur­round­ing di­a­betes, through her In­sta­gram page “Kim The Type 1 Di­a­bet­ic”, where she de­tails some of the is­sues she has to con­tin­u­ous­ly con­tend with to main­tain her health at op­ti­mal lev­els and func­tion at her best.

Type 1 di­a­betes, once called in­sulin-de­pen­dent or ju­ve­nile di­a­betes, was pre­vi­ous­ly thought to oc­cur more fre­quent­ly in chil­dren but has been found to de­vel­op at any age. Type 1 di­a­betes is less com­mon than type 2—about five-ten per cent of peo­ple with di­a­betes have type 1. Ac­cord­ing to the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC), it is thought to be caused by an au­toim­mune re­ac­tion (the body at­tacks it­self by mis­take). This re­ac­tion de­stroys the cells in the pan­creas that make in­sulin, called be­ta cells. In some cas­es, cer­tain peo­ple have genes that make them more like­ly to de­vel­op Type 1 di­a­betes. A trig­ger in the en­vi­ron­ment, such as a virus, can al­so play a part in de­vel­op­ing the ill­ness. Di­et and lifestyle habits are not the causal fac­tors for Type 1 di­a­betes as they can be for Type 2.

Kir­ton was born and raised in Trinidad and is the mid­dle sib­ling of three. Her old­er sis­ter is not di­a­bet­ic, but her younger broth­er, Ker­rie is al­so a Type 1 Di­a­bet­ic. As proof that there is not al­ways a di­rect causal link with­in a fam­i­ly in terms of the ill­ness, they do not have im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly mem­bers with di­a­betes. Kir­ton’s grand­moth­er de­vel­oped Type 2 di­a­betes in the late years of her life be­fore her pass­ing. At age eight, Kir­ton’s broth­er was di­ag­nosed with di­a­betes, and when she was 11, her moth­er start­ed notic­ing sim­i­lar symp­toms in Kir­ton as her broth­er ex­pe­ri­enced. “I re­mem­ber be­ing thirsty all the time no mat­ter how much wa­ter I drank,” she says. She al­so would uri­nate fre­quent­ly, had blurred vi­sion, and over­whelm­ing feel­ings of ex­haus­tion, lethar­gy and an in­abil­i­ty to fo­cus. Up­on recog­nis­ing these symp­toms, Kir­ton’s moth­er put her on the same di­etary regime as her broth­er. How­ev­er, just af­ter sit­ting Com­mon En­trance, she was ward­ed at Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for over two months to un­der­go treat­ment and learn and un­der­stand how to man­age the ill­ness.

At the ten­der age of 11, dur­ing her stay in the hos­pi­tal, Kir­ton was not able to grasp the mag­ni­tude of the ill­ness and the way it would al­ter her life’s course. She does, how­ev­er, re­mem­ber mak­ing friends with the grand­child of a ward­ed pa­tient, who would pay Kir­ton a rou­tine vis­it every time she came to see her grand­moth­er. Mak­ing new friends and “hav­ing fun” as she de­scribed, made a big­ger im­print in Kir­ton’s mem­o­ry than any neg­a­tive con­no­ta­tions of be­ing a di­a­bet­ic.

‘Get a sol­id foun­da­tion of sup­port’

Af­ter 28 years of liv­ing with the ill­ness, Kir­ton de­scribed that any di­a­bet­ic’s biggest chal­lenge, “is in every mo­ment, try­ing to bal­ance our blood sug­ar”. The bal­anc­ing act that di­a­bet­ics have to do re­quires them to en­sure that their blood sug­ar is not too high–with too much glu­cose in their blood­stream, and al­so not too low, with too lit­tle glu­cose in their blood­stream. High lev­els of glu­cose are dan­ger­ous, and Kir­ton at­trib­ut­es spiked lev­els to po­ten­tial­ly eat­ing too many car­bo­hy­drates with­out the req­ui­site in­sulin in­take. These high lev­els cause her (and oth­er di­a­bet­ics) to uri­nate fre­quent­ly and feel plagued by all the symp­toms of lethar­gy and ex­haus­tion ex­pe­ri­enced pre-di­ag­no­sis.

Even more dan­ger­ous, in her opin­ion, is plum­met­ing blood sug­ar, which leaves her weak, life­less and prone to trem­bling and sweat­ing. “I’ve been in a co­ma twice in my life re­sult­ing from low blood sug­ar,” she re­called pen­sive­ly. This bal­anc­ing act not on­ly re­sults in im­me­di­ate symp­toms in the mo­ment, but if not prop­er­ly man­aged can af­fect and dam­age or­gans long term. Kir­ton said the nerve dam­age that she con­tends with in her feet was a re­sult of di­a­betes.

This nerve dam­age in her feet some­times be­comes prob­lem­at­ic, as she is one of the most ded­i­cat­ed gym go­ers in ex­is­tence. Her com­mit­ment to ex­er­cise, test­ing her blood sug­ars con­stant­ly, and re­duc­ing stress are in­te­gral to her tool­box. An­oth­er of her se­cret weapons is her pos­i­tiv­i­ty. She looks at di­a­betes as a gift, “be­cause that’s what it is; a gift you’ve been giv­en to ma­noeu­vre through life, to show oth­ers that what some may think im­pos­si­ble is in fact, pos­si­ble”. She al­so is op­ti­mistic about the fu­ture, as tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ues to im­prove and de­vel­op, with in­no­va­tions such as the Con­tin­u­ous Glu­cose Mon­i­tor (CGM) which al­lows di­a­bet­ics to mon­i­tor their blood sug­ar with­out us­ing fin­ger pricks. The CGM, how­ev­er, is still in­ac­ces­si­ble to many peo­ple due to the cost, at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $17,000 (TT) per year.

Car­ni­val is one of Kir­ton’s great loves, and she spends the sea­son work­ing hard, lim­ing, fete­ing and en­joy­ing her­self on the road, just as any­one else would, but with an ex­tra lay­er of con­scious­ness. Aside from Car­ni­val, day-to-day ac­tiv­i­ties that most peo­ple do with­out a sec­ond thought, re­quire thought­ful­ness and for­ward plan­ning for di­a­bet­ics. “Work­ing out, go­ing in­to an un­ex­pect­ed­ly long work meet­ing with­out hav­ing eat­en, walk­ing long dis­tances in a new city,” are some sce­nar­ios that have caused Kir­ton’s blood sug­ar to un­ex­pect­ed­ly drop. In any un­cer­tain or new sit­u­a­tions, she al­ways has to be armed with a high-glu­cose snack in case her sug­ar drops. These chal­lenges have be­come some­thing she is well pre­pared for, but the bal­anc­ing act “some­times still feels im­pos­si­ble”. Kir­ton, with her cheer­ful spir­it and ra­di­ant en­er­gy, how­ev­er, is ded­i­cat­ed to still get­ting up every day and try­ing her best to man­age the ill­ness and live as joy­ous­ly as she can.

Re­ly­ing on the sup­port from her fam­i­ly and friends, es­pe­cial­ly her younger broth­er al­so af­flict­ed with the ill­ness keeps Kir­ton go­ing. Ever pos­i­tive, she counts her­self as “lucky to have him on this jour­ney with me, some­one to make light of the chal­lenges when they feel too daunt­ing.”

She even jokes with him that she got di­a­betes for him so that he would not be alone, but re­al­ly, root­ed in her faith, be­lieves that God al­lowed them both to have it to be each oth­er’s sup­port sys­tem. This sup­port is the crux of her mes­sage to oth­er di­a­bet­ics who may be strug­gling, to not on­ly arm them­selves with the tools, habits and men­tal ca­pac­i­ty to man­age the dis­ease but al­so a sol­id foun­da­tion of sup­port that makes all the dif­fer­ence. Her In­sta­gram page “Kim­TheType1Di­a­bet­ic” pro­vides an in­sight in­to her lifestyle, lived ex­pe­ri­ences and top tips for peo­ple liv­ing with the ill­ness.

Kim Kir­ton wears many hats, mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­al, daugh­ter, sis­ter, aun­ty, health buff and Christ seek­er, but the one that she re­fus­es to don is the vic­tim. She con­tin­ues to prove her tenac­i­ty by over­com­ing the chal­lenges and curve­balls di­a­betes throws at her, to come out stronger every time.