kayne charlton was 13 years old when he started feeling “off.” the campbell river, b.c. native remembers breaking into a cold sweat over a bowl of breakfast cereal one winter morning and waking up in the middle of the night, thirsty. he had trouble focusing, as if everything around him was fuzzy, and he felt anxious. doctors asked his mom if the teen was on drugs.
his mother, cindy mclean, had another hunch: her son was showing signs of type 1 diabetes, a condition she has lived with since she was six years old. she pricked his finger to test his blood sugar and sure enough, his glucose level was sky-high. they went straight to the hospital and got the official diagnosis.
“like mother like son,” mclean says. “the one thing i didn’t want to give my kids was type 1 diabetes. it was pretty tough getting the news.”
diagnosis often comes as a shock, but for charlton, having grown up watching his mom experience and manage symptoms, he was at least accustomed to what living with the disease is like.
“i knew what i was in for,” says charlton, now 34 living in kelowna, b.c.
charlton remembers his mom doing multiple daily injections (mdi) of insulin, most often in her abdomen. growing up playing hockey, mdi was something he wanted to avoid, so he went straight to an insulin pump. while the system was better than poking himself with a needle in the stomach several times a day, the first model he used had tubing, which he found cumbersome.
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“i’d have to disconnect the pump before taking a shower,” charlton says. “and i was always very aware that it was there. it just wasn’t comfortable.”
“sometimes i’m trekking through the bush, and i honestly forget it’s there,” charlton says. “i don’t even have to think about it.
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“we might get a call, and everyone needs to run to deal with something, stat; it can be very stressful,” he says of his work. “sometimes we’ll be working in a different town. omnipod helps me feel more in control. it just gives that peace of mind.”
the system is also ideal for his time away from work. charlton loves being outside, taking advantage of the lakeside living that kelowna offers. “it doesn’t matter if the omnipod gets wet*,” he says. “i can run in and out of the house without having to think about it.
“when you have diabetes, you don’t want to be different from other people or stand out because of it,” says charlton. “you’re always trying to fit in. this makes me completely forget about it.”
this story was created by content works, healthing.ca’s commercial content division, on behalf of omnipod ®