Aaron DeGoey raced back to his residence hall room with a towel on his head, running around, screaming nonsense that his roommate found amusing. But it quickly became apparent something was wrong — his blood sugar was low.

His roommate, TJ Page, ran to the C-store to grab donuts and orange juice, but when that didn’t work, his roommate knew he needed the shot. Before DeGoey tried to give it to himself, his roommate grabbed it from him and as quickly as one, two, the large needle was jabbed into the front of his leg.

DeGoey, a sophomore in pre-business, has been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes for 16 years, which makes his life a little harder.

“Even though it might not appear that anything is wrong with me, I still do have a disease. You really can’t tell if someone has diabetes or not,” DeGoey said. “It’s just hard — it just makes life harder.”

He was the youngest case of diabetes in Iowa at the time of his diagnosis and is currently the second youngest case in the state.

Even at such a young age, DeGoey said he didn’t have much of a choice but to adapt to it, and his parents had to learn to do the same.

“They had to make sure to keep snacks and stuff around and take away a lot of the sugary foods,” he said. “They just kind of learned to adapt to it, as I did.”

DeGoey said the transition to college wasn’t hard because he has an insulin pump and told all of his friends at college about his condition.

“I decided to tell them to make sure they knew what to do in case I couldn’t take care of myself,” DeGoey said.

Judy Trumpy, registered dietitian at the Thielen Student Health Center, said diabetic students can come to her to get help knowing what types of food to choose on campus.

“If they come to us, then we can help them with foods they prefer and that they are used to eating,” Trumpy said.

With many diabetic students focusing on counting carbs, Trumpy said that she can sit down with them to go over Net Nutrition, encourage them to eat breakfast, and talk about how to manage their other meals throughout the day.

“I would go through [Net Nutrition] with the students sitting with me,” Trumpy said. “If the student prefers, I can even write the diet for them.”

Trumpy said she will introduce a diabetic student to the manager in each dining center and keeps in touch with the student by e-mail and phone calls to make sure they aren’t having any problems with their diet.

Page, freshman in pre-journalism and mass communication, who has known DeGoey for years and lived with him last year, said witnessing DeGoey’s with low blood sugar was kind of scary at the time, but now it’s something they can all look back on and find funny.

“Yeah, it was scary, but I knew everything to do, so now it’s a funny moment we can look back on it,” Page said.

DeGoey said he’s participated in the Central Iowa Walk to Cure Diabetes for many years to try to help raise money to find a cure.

Page said awareness days such as World Diabetes Day, on Friday, and fundraising events, such as the Central Iowa Walk to Cure Diabetes, are great. He said diabetics like DeGoey have a more difficult life than most people, but they didn’t do anything wrong in their lifestyle to get the disease.

“I think it’s good because I look at him and [think] ‘man, this kid really has to watch what he eats.’ When he’s older he’s going to have a lot more problems because he has diabetes,” Page said. “He’s not a lazy kid who didn’t eat right and got diabetes, he just got it.”

Although there are a lot more complications to everyday life, DeGoey said he just has to get through it.

“It’s just that many different steps each day making sure your blood sugar is staying in the right area, making sure you’re taking care of yourself and getting your insulin — there’s that much added on every day, compared to the normal person,” DeGoey said. “It’s just part of your life that you just have to do every day.”

DeGoey said many people tend to perceive diabetes as a disease correlated with being overweight, which isn’t always true.

“A lot of people tie diabetes into being overweight, and that’s not the case with half of the diabetics. Half of them are perfectly healthy and our pancreas doesn’t work,” DeGoey said.

Although it’s hard to tell he has a disease, DeGoey said it’s important for people understand that he has one and there are others who have it too even though they don’t look like it.

SIDEBAR 1: Type 1 Diabetes

According to the American Diabetes Association, Type 1 diabetes “is usually diagnosed in children and young adults, and was previously known as juvenile diabetes.” With type 1 diabetes “the body does not produce enough insulin, a hormone that is needed to convert sugar [glucose], starches and other food into energy needed for daily life.”

— Source: the American Diabetes Association’s Web Site, www.diabetes.org

SIDEBAR 2: World Diabetes Day:

World Diabetes Day was first held in 1991 by the International Diabetes Federation and the World Health Organization “in response to the alarming rise in diabetes around the world.” The day is United Nations’ World Health Day and tends to focus on a specific theme each year. This year’s theme is “Diabetes in Children and Adolescents” as Type 1 diabetes grows in children and adolescents each year by 3 percent.

Monuments such as the Sears Tower, in Chicago, and the U.N. Building, in New York, are just a few of the monuments in the United States that will light up in blue to help mark World Diabetes Day. Other buildings across the world will do the same.

— Source: World Diabetes Day’s official Web site, www.worldiabetesday.org