410 Forum — Sports
A Diabetic's Day
By Amy Wann
8 a.m.
Sleeping in on a Saturday morning. Doing what she wants when she wants. These are two things Ashley Cooper does not get to do often. Cooper was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 11 and has been pushed by her blood sugar to be up by 8 and to check in with it every few hours, every day since.
Ashley Cooper is a member of the women’s club volleyball team at the University of Northern Colorado, and while she has Type 1 diabetes, she said she hopes to use it as proof that anyone can make things happen, disease or no disease.
9:30 a.m.
A freshman at UNC, Cooper has classes Monday through Friday starting at 9:30 She does what any college student will do and takes a notebook with her to class, but she must also remember to throw in a snack sized candy bar and some crackers just in case she feels her blood sugar dip. The beginning of her day started with a prick of a needle slowly pushing insulin into her veins and giving her body a break on producing its own. This process will happen again two to three more times throughout her day.
11:45 a.m.
“I don’t have the option to skip lunch like a lot of my friends do, but I guess that makes me do my homework during other times,” Cooper said with a laugh. Walking into the women’s restroom, she pulls a thin syringe from her bag and while chatting away lifts her shirt enough to see her hip and slides the needle beneath the skin. In a quick moment she is done with her second dose of insulin for the day. The needle and cool liquid enter her body without causing even a little wince.
6 p.m.
She is done with the student part of her life and on to the good part, she says. It is time for practice with her club volleyball team. In the locker room Cooper trades her faded jeans and UNC sweatshirt for black spandex shorts a bright blue T-shirt.
“I’m not quite done with my get up,” Cooper says. “Wait for the good looking hot part.”
The next thing she pulls from her bag is not her shoes, or socks, or anything else one might imagine. An insulin pump is her top accessory for any game or practice, and though it is small in size, it is actually what makes her love of volleyball more than just a dream.
The device Cooper has to wear every practice is called a continuous infusion pump and is about the size of a pack of playing cards. It allows for regulation of her blood sugar during heavy activity and can’t even be seen by onlookers as it is clipped on her shorts and tucked under her T-shirt. Though the thought of a needle being stuck in you while you run about playing a sport does not sound pleasant, Cooper said she can’t feel a thing until it compresses and more insulin is injected, roughly every 45 minutes to an hour.
8 p.m.
Practice has wound down and Cooper says she is tired but wouldn’t have it any other way. She checks her blood sugar with a quick prick of her finger and says it’s a little high. Cooper changes into a pair of sweat pants as she talks about how it used to annoy her that her fingers would hurt and her energy was affected by something she couldn’t control. She has since turned it into a positive, and she does not let it stop her from playing the sport she loves most.
“Diabetes is just a bump, and what better to do than turn that into bumping a volleyball?” Cooper said.
To the other girls on her team, Cooper is just one of them. She runs her laps just as fast, dives for the ball just as hard, jumps just as high, and smiles just as much as any one of them.
“No one would ever know she was anything but normal until they saw her in the locker room with a needle stuck in her side,” Michaella McGurk said.
Cooper said she hopes she can influence others on campus to join teams regardless of their illnesses, especially diabetes.
“I didn’t play sports the last two years of high school, after I was diagnosed,” said Tiffany Schiferens, a UNC student who also has Type 1 diabetes. “But since I have been in class with Ashley, I think she’s talked me in to trying out.”
11:35 p.m.
Cooper walks down the hall of her dorm and into her quiet little room. All of the needles are put away. Her diabetes is nowhere in sight. For the rest of the night she is just a normal college student, resting up to do it all again tomorrow.
More on diabetes
• Athletes with diabetes include tennis legend Arthur Ashe, baseball Hall of Famer Ty Cobb and Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler. To find out which other successful athletes suffered from the disease, go to For Your Diabetes Life! Web site.
• For information on Type-1 diabetes, go to Diabetes.org.
