Lilly Banks Still Hits Better than You

 

As part of my effort to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, I often have the pleasure of talking to young people who have been diagnosed with type-1 diabetes. It’s not a topic that lends itself to pleasant conversation, but people like Lilly Banks and Adam Kavka display an impressive resolve, and provide a sense of the balance so many type-1 individuals develop in the face of a challenging disease. 

(I will cover Adam’s story in detail here: viall4diabetes2011.)

YOU CAN DONATE TO JDRF HERE.

As some people know, I am planning to pedal across the United States, for a third time. In the first leg (April 30-May 20), starting from Acadia National Park, I did cover 1,200 miles. That’s too slow, I admit. 

And I almost got moldy since it rained sixteen days out of twenty-one. Still, that’s not as hard as being diabetic for a week. 

So let’s consider Ms. Bank’s story in some detail. I wish I could have recorded our interview (but I am 75, and have the technological skills of a five-year-old). She was diagnosed last November 15, at age 16. I learned that she’s a serious high school softball player, and used to play a mean game of soccer too. She’s met physical challenges before. And she’s not afraid of diabetes. 

“Small, but mighty,” as her mom, Joey, describes her.

 

Lilly is also funny. I laughed repeatedly during our conversation, even though no one would imagine discussing a lifelong health issue would lend itself to humor. First, we focused on softball. Lilly said she wasn’t sure, but thought her current batting average was .430 or .450, probably third on her team. She plays middle infield, as well as outfield, wherever coaches need her – mostly outfield, lately. She’ll be a junior next year, and her dream is to play for Kentucky in college. I asked what the best part of playing ball was. “Just the connections, with friends,” she said. She also played regular baseball when she was little. I told her, in 1974, girls had to sue for the right to play Little League ball – in the “good old days” when girls who were serious about sports were seen as aberrations. I told her, if she had to go back to the 60s, when I was in high school, she’d have to kill people because of the way young ladies were treated. 

I can assure you, though. Lilly has no plans to kill anyone. Like I said, she’s funny. Not bloodthirsty.

 

On a serious note, I asked what it was like when she was first diagnosed. Her story reminded me of our family’s response, when Emily Viall, our daughter, learned in 2005 that she was a type-1 diabetic. Lilly and her parents made the dreaded trip to Children’s Hospital one evening, and time passed, and it grew late. She remembers feeling tired, and remembers the doctor delivering the unwelcome news. “This is going to be for the rest of my life,” she remembers thinking. Her mom was heartbroken. “I could see it in her face,” she added. Her parents were “devastated.” Asked about all the work involved in dealing with being type-1, she says her mom “hates it as much as I do.” 

I remember crying, when our daughter was diagnosed, and don’t think my wife Anne fully regained her composure for at least a year. 

Talking to Lilly brought back a rush of memories. 

So, what happens to a person like Lilly, when they get that *$#&#@! news? Lilly says the challenge has made her push harder on a number of levels. She’s decided to switch high schools next year, and attend Butler Tech. She plans to focus on medicine, and hopes to become an endocrinologist. She told me she had just been “fitted for scrubs,” a few days before, and it “made me so happy.”

 

And that’s what I’ve found, having a child with type-1 diabetes, and talking to others. These young folk develop steel in their character. Lilly, for example, has already learned how to handle the challenges of daily care. She has a good boyfriend, who has an app on his phone (Lilly’s mother, father, and brother, Gage, all do, too) which signals if she’s going low. In first period class, one morning, her blood sugar started dropping, and her pump started beeping – which she found embarrassing – but her boyfriend, who goes to Fairfield High School, messaged her and told her to make sure to eat some Skittles. Her dad, Josh, texted too. She remembers sweating, and getting shaky, and had to head for the school nurse’s office. But as Adam Kavka could tell her, or our Emily, care for type-1 diabetics has improved dramatically in the last fifteen years. So that’s a hopeful sign. 

Only: It’s still a daily challenge. 

Lilly has to worry about her infusion site while playing softball – and it struck me that if she dove for a catch in the outfield, she might land on her pump and knock her system out completely. She says at prom this year, she managed to rip out her insertion site, while dealing with her dress, and spent the rest of the evening in type-1 limbo. “It sucked,” she admitted with a wry sense of humor, and then laughed. In fact, her self-deprecating humor was part of what struck me most. Clearly, Ms. Banks was going to deal with diabetes, in part, by mocking the challenge and then overcoming it. I asked if diabetes had affected her ability to play ball. “A little,” she admitted. One day, however, when she came up to bat, she said, “the other team was talking trash.” She stepped out of the batter’s box, stepped back in, and then drilled a pitch to left. 

A teammate piped up, directing a gibe at the other team’s bench, “She’s got type-1 diabetes, and still hits better than you!”

 

I can’t copy Lilly’s storytelling here, as a better writer might, but I laughed so hard, I could hardly ask her another question. 

I did ask, eventually, if she felt I was intruding with my queries. “No,” she said, “this is the most ranting, I’ve ever done.” 

I felt good, if I could help her blow off steam, and told her she didn’t sound like she was really ranting. I told her that I had been in the Marines, but if I had to stick myself with needles all the time, I’d be cursing every day. I suggested she try cursing herself. (Jokingly, mom and dad. Only joking!) She does admit that when she first heard her diagnosis, “I didn’t think it would be so much work.” To start, her mom did a lot of the checking of numbers and sticking of needles, and that helped. Mom, Lilly says, “has been very supportive.” Her whole family has. Her friends, too. “We can joke about it,” now she says. 

I laughed hard again when she said that when her boyfriend heard she had type-1 diabetes, he thought she was joking. 

“Yeah. Ha. So funny! I’ve got a lifetime disease!” I replied. We both laughed at that absurd image. 

But her boyfriend is solid; and Lilly is not going to be thrown off by challenges. She’s learning about diet, what foods work, which ones don’t. “I know it’s going to be frustrating,” she admits. “I get so mad, sometimes.” Then she adds, “It really opened my eyes.” 

I asked if she was a good student. “I think so,” she said. She explained why she was now so interested in medicine. She said she felt she’d be “relatable” to patients. She wants to make a difference in others’ lives, and in talking to her, I came away convinced she would. I finally let her go, after a few last questions. “How did you and your boyfriend meet?” since they didn’t go to school together, I wondered. She says they started talking online. He told her she “looked familiar,” and that’s how conversation began. 

I told her I thought that sounded like “a good pickup line,” and she laughed and said, “Now I’m starting to get the picture.”

 

So there you have it. Lilly is sixteen, new to the life of a diabetic, but well prepared to meet any challenges. I’ll look for her in a Kentucky uniform in a couple of years. And if she has to dive to her right to stop a ground ball while playing shortstop at the college level? 

Well, the young lady is going to dive. 

And she’s going to grab it, leap to her feet, and throw out the runner. She’s going to beat type-1 diabetes, as well.

With type-1 diabetes, the whole family is involved.

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