Living with diabetes

Kaylyn Lybbert with her teddy bear Ruby

Justine Jorgensen

Kaylyn Lybbert is eight years old. She has brownish blonde hair and glasses, and attends Canyon School in Pincher Creek. She is the youngest of a family of four. A year and a half ago, at the age of seven, she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

"I was breathing weird - I have asthma, so they thought it was an asthma attack, so we went to the hospital." Half an hour later, they found out it was diabetes. Kaylyn responded as any seven-year old would: "What's diabetes? And why do I have it?" The diagnosis meant that Kaylyn's body does not produce insulin, a hormone that regulates the level of glucose (sugar) in the blood. Without it, glucose builds up in the bloodstream instead of being used for energy.


Now her days look a little different. She must regularly test her blood sugar and do injections. She also must have snacks throughout the day; if she does not, "I start acting weird. And my hand starts to shake a little." She went on to say "I just can't go to the fridge and say 'I'm hungry' and grab a snack. I wish I could. I remember when I wasn't diabetic I could just grab anything I wanted out of the fridge. Just go to the fridge anytime I want and grab food. And like 'eh, I want some food', go to the fridge - not gonna happen anymore."

When asked if Kaylyn's condition affects the whole family, her father Bruce Lybbert responded,"In some ways, not at all." Kaylyn piped up, "In some ways, a whole bunch." Kaylyn's grandmother was also diagnosed with diabetes; therefore, it was not as surprising for Bruce when Kaylyn developed the same. "We have to get used to eating on a schedule," Bruce explained. Meals also have to be carb-counted: "To match the insulin, she needs to have a certain number of carbs. When they talk about Type 2 diabetes, they're talking about reducing, all the time. With her, her pancreas doesn't work at all. So if you were to have your dose of insulin then no carbohydrates, it's actually lethal. So you have to balance them out."

Kaylyn's 6 daily blood tests and 4 daily injections make it so her body can use the sugar present. Her muscles, including her heart and brain, need the glucose; "If [they] can't find the easy stuff, then it starts digesting sugars that your body needs," Bruce explained, and Kaylyn added, "Like parts of your brain. Like parts of you." The whole family has helped with her injections - "except the pets," Kaylyn clarified. "I don't trust the pets."

There are always struggles when learning to adjust and cope with the changes brought on by a disease. "It's not that easy," Kaylyn said, in regard to her injections. "You have to pick a spot that doesn't hurt and when you go in, sometimes it hurts." There have been times when both Kaylyn's mother and father volunteer to test with her, so she is not alone. "Part of what we found is it's not really the knowledge that's the hard part. We're asking her to poke herself with a needle six times a day. And if you do that once in a while it's not bad. But it's been every day now for a year and a half," Bruce elaborated. "As a parent... If I tell you to do something every day, that I've never tried, and you don't like doing, you can throw that in my face real easy. 'Do you know what you're asking me to do?' And by doing the test with her, it helps ground you to realize, 'THIS is what we're asking her to do'."

Kaylyn is not the only kid going through the same. Bruce mentioned that they began looking on the internet for websites detailing other kids' experiences. "There are websites all over dedicated to adults. But very little for kids. And even the ones for kids were written by doctors." He explained that it was really hard to find resources to show Kaylyn what she was going to have to go through.  So they made their own website. When asked why, Kaylyn said simply,"So everyone can know what I'm going through." In the past, when her father asked her what she would say to other kids with diabetes, she answered that she's just like every other kid. She's just got a few more things to do in the day.

Kaylyn's website is called Diabetes for Kids by a Kid; it contains pictures of her daily life and her hobbies, which are collecting the multi-coloured caps from her needles, stuffies and dolls, and photography. There are also a few of her favourite recipes (low carb), a summary of her day, links for extra information on diabetes, and two videos demonstrating how to do the blood tests and injections. These videos have been used by a family friend in Toronto who deals with at-risk children; "It does reach people," said Bruce. In total the site has had about eight hundred hits - Kaylyn hopes to one day reach one thousand.

"One of the things she wants to keep letting people know is that the disease doesn't define her. That she likes to be a regular kid. She loves to ride her bike. That's one of the things that she tries to tell the kids she's in school with, is that she's really no different than them and that's always been sort of a stigma with - not so much now - but in past number of years," Bruce explained.

Kaylyn loves art. She loves to swim and ride her bike. She is currently entertaining several ideas of what she wants to do when she grows up; the list includes artist, vet, cook. Diabetes affects her but it does not define her - she is the same as any kid, with a few more things to do in the day.

Visit Kaylyn's website at diabetesforkidsbyakid.weebly.com