Magnets, cards help children manage diabetes

A couple created Type1tools so their daughter could learn to adjust her insulin.
By DELMA J. FRANCIS
SCRIPPS HOWARD
When most parents of diabetic children learn of their children's diagnosis, they listen carefully to health-care professionals, learn what to do to keep their children healthy and teach the young diabetics how to handle the chronic disease.
Lisa and Doug Powell went way beyond that.
The Minneapolis graphic designers are owners of Schwartz Powell Design. They created Type1tools, a system of flashcards and refrigerator magnets featuring food images, along with calculation pads, to help their family live with juvenile diabetes (also called Type I diabetes). The system became available to the public a few months ago.
When their 9-year-old daughter, Maya, a fourth-grader, was told she had Type I diabetes nearly two years ago, the Powells searched for aids that would help them cope.
"It was like trying to get a Ph.D. in endocrinology in three days," Lisa said. "We'd go online every night, but there was nothing on the market that's fun. Rote memory is not a fun thing to do." Not to mention difficult for a 7-year-old.
But Maya has been a trouper -- even when she was scared.
"Her first words [after the diagnosis] were, 'Am I going to die?'" Lisa said. "Things were such a blur, I don't remember what I said."
Types of disease
There is currently no cure for diabetes, which in the juvenile form involves the inability of the pancreas to produce the insulin needed to process sugar. By contrast, Type II diabetes usually occurs in people over age 30 and can be related to obesity and lack of exercise. Type II patients usually are treated with oral medication and sometimes can control the condition with diet and exercise.
Type I is one of the more treatable chronic diseases. The diabetic gets insulin through shots or an insulin pump, which Maya now uses.
A person can live a high-quality life with diabetes. And Maya is in good company. The current Miss America, Nicole Johnson, is an insulin-dependent diabetic. So are actresses Halle Berry, Jean Smart and Mary Tyler Moore, as well as author Anne Rice.
Today, Type I diabetics can eat the same foods as everyone else (including desserts) in moderation, as long as they adjust their insulin to handle carbohydrate intake.
Deciding dosage
How do you determine how much insulin is needed?
With Type1tools, it's pretty easy.
One recent evening, as her parents prepared dinner, Maya checked to see what was cooking. Then she went to the refrigerator door and moved the magnets representing dinner -- chicken, green beans (same carbs as the snow peas on the menu), salad and milk -- to the freezer as a reminder.
Then Lisa pulled out a Type1tools calculation pad and did the math, adding the number of carbs and dividing by 0.7, Maya's insulin-to-carb ratio.
Maya made the pump adjustment as she sat down to eat.
Before her diagnosis, Maya didn't know anyone with diabetes.
"Just our cat, Bucko," she said. Bucko, now deceased, required insulin shots twice a day, so Maya was not unfamiliar with the procedure.
Upon diagnosis, Maya gave herself shots several times a day in the abdomen and upper thighs.
"She took it in stride," Lisa said.
Maya's brother Zev, 12, at first feared that he also might develop diabetes. But he says it doesn't worry him so much anymore because he's seen how well his sister has managed it.
Maya was fitted with the insulin pump in January 2003. "All of a sudden, her life was her own again," her mom said. "She thought it was so cool. She came [out of the doctor's office] singing the James Bond theme."
Insulin pumps are about the size of a pager and have a digital face. Electrical leads from the pump (usually worn on the belt) run just under the skin to administer the insulin.
Between the pump and Type1tools, Maya's life is pretty much like those of other kids her age.