DESIREE: The animals I have here are
a dog, a cat, two bunnies, a bunch of chickens,
two goats and two turkeys.
Hi.
I love animals.
Desiree is a fun-loving, animal compassionate,
empathetic person who feels the emotions of everyone
around her.
Desiree is definitely the sister.
She definitely takes care of everybody
and makes sure that everything's going right.
It looks like an alligator.
Desiree, take one mark.
My name's Desiree, and I'm 12 years old.
Charlie is a tuxedo cat.
He's my best friend, and I love him.
Desiree was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes
when she was almost 9 and then celiac disease
about a year after that.
I am afraid of needles.
I am freaked out.
I had to have five shots a day: breakfast, lunch, dinner,
after school and then before bed sometimes.
We had a feeling I was a celiac, allergic to wheat,
because if I ate it, I would get a bad stomachache.
Celiac kind of rocked her boat a little bit harder than Type 1
did.
Shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste everything
is different than how it used to be.
It made it to where she wasn't a normal child in her eyes.
She was perceived different at school, also, because
of the things that she would eat.
Like diabetes, I was fine.
But then celiac comes around, and birthday parties, I
don't get the regular cake.
We have to go buy me a different cake.
We did recognize that Desiree was being sad.
We didn't recognize that it was as bad as it was.
My aunt passed away.
And that's when it really all hit me,
and I couldn't handle it.
I got to the point where I didn't want to be alive by then
because everything was just too much to handle for me.
When Desiree was 11 years old, we found two suicide letters
under her pillow, one for us and one for her sister.
I immediately knew that she had been trying to kill herself
by overdosing on insulin because I
knew that we had had quite a few rough nights with really
low blood sugars that were unexplained.
Her school sent us to Doernbecher Children's
Hospital.
She was high risk and on suicide watch.
They treat me like every kid is special.
They know how to handle kids.
Like, they are there for kids.
Doernbecher Children's Hospital is an essential part
of our family.
They help her smile.
They have realistically saved my child's life twice,
once with mental health and once with Type 1 diabetes.
Then you just open up the Doernbecher Nike Freestyle
program, and it's given us this platform
to help other families realize that you're not alone.
I'm designing a backpack, a jacket and shoes.
On my shoe, I have the diabetes ribbon,
and I also have a bunch of family members' name
around the bottom of the shoe.
My favorite feature is the twenty one pilots' signatures
and logo and then Charlie's name on the back.
I have seen her go from a kid who is not
comfortable ordering her own coffee to now bossing around
a team at Nike.
I've also seen the program bring a smile back to her face
that we hadn't seen in a while, and that's pretty nice.
It makes me feel good because I'm helping people talk
and getting it out there that you
can talk about mental health without being ashamed of it.
She's not the only kid with a chronic disease
that feels like this.
She's not the only kid going through hard stuff
in life that feels like this.
I think it's really important to listen to your kids talk.
Some people will act happy but are like breaking inside.
And that really sucks because that's what I was doing.
Talk about it.
Get it out there.
Just say something.
If I can help one person then it's all worth it.
Cheese.