I'm Jasper I'm 17 and I'm a Type 1
Diabetic.
it's part of my life.
Every day, I wake up, test my blood sugar levels.
I go to bed, test my blood sugar levels.
All throughout the day as well
I'm just managing it all the time
How I manage it?
I really love the sport, so I check
myself before, after, and even during
just to get the best out of
what I do on and off the water.
For Jasper, his sport's rowing and he's got a great passion
for rowing, but incorporating that into
his life it's really about being in
tune with your body and understanding
how your body performs.
Being a diabetic he has to be really across that.
What we say to families is to keep an eye on your teenager
make sure that they're managing okay
that their mental health is under control and
ask them regularly 'how are they going' and if
they need any additional support.
Jasper has lots of stresses. He's got lots of
homework stresses he's got sporting
stresses he wants to do well in all of
those subjects and all those sporting
events so he has to manage that those
stresses as well as just being a
grumpy teenager at times.
It's a difficult thing for him to do at times.
So he has to balance these
things out and having a focus like sport
really tunes his mind.
We also say to parents that a little bit of stress is
good but too much stress can be
detrimental to their health, so try and
find out right balance of mental health
of physical health and stress.
We're doing a lot of work looking at the
school environment to try and implement
some new strategies within schools
to improve their care of young people
with Type 1 Diabetes.
I would encourage all schools to have a have a service for
diabetics. They spend so much time here
that it's important they have the support
given to them to make their life as
normal as possible, because as parent you
can't be there all the time.
The school really helps by first of all letting
teachers know that I have Type 1 Diabetes.
Even in exams I'm given a rest
time where it's like extra time added on
if I if I go low or if I'm not feeling right.
Which is really helpful.
I've had to go to a number of camps for Jasper, the last one
was the Pilbara Rowing Tour.
The Pilbara Rowing Tour was an interesting experience.
He hates the idea of having a
parent come along, because he wants to be independent.
He wants to be as independent as anybody else in that team.
Definitely with age comes independence.
I'm 17 now and I still feel
like I rely way too much my parents, but
being independent is probably one of the most important
things about being a Type 1 Diabetic.
You have to be on it all the time
even if your parents are out or not home.
Some of the work that we're doing at the
moment is looking at stress and anxiety
innovative ways that suit young people -
using mobile technology - apps on their
phones or their iPad and this is also
great for kids who can't access mental
health services within the metropolitan areas.
So kids who are in rural and remote areas.
The app asks questions rated on a scale, so how happy are you
feeling right now? How upset are you
feeling right now? And the idea is to
really gain a picture of what's
happening over their day and how their
mood fluctuates and then look at how
that's associated with fluctuations in
their blood glucose levels.
So my advice to teenagers with Type 1 Diabetes would
be that you spend a lot of time looking
after your physical health, but your
mental health is really important too.
It's okay to ask for help.
Allow your child to be who they need to be
and don't let the diabetes
dictate an outcome.
Let them life their life to the fullest
and let them do the things they need to do.
Some advice I would give would be
definitely just to step back and
take a look out like how you're going
and how you're traveling with your levels.
My friends play a really important role
in my managing my levels.
All my crew members know that I'm a Type 1 Diabetic.
It's really good because
if they see something's not right with
me they're on it straight away, and help
me out just to make sure everything
keeps clicking along.