The memories I have are very fuzzy. It was a weekend, and all my family was home. I had been feeling really unwell and spent the day lying on the couch in front of the TV.
Fast forward to that evening, and I was unable to stand up on my own. That’s when my parents became concerned and checked my resting heart rate. It was 130 beats per minute. At that point, they decided that I needed to go to the hospital and be seen by a doctor. Once we got to the hospital, it was a sequence of fortunate events that are the reason I can write this today.
The first fortunate event was that the nurse who checked me into the emergency room smelled my breath (when you are ketonic, your breath has a very distinct smell). He took me straight to a doctor. The second fortunate event was that the doctor on call that night was a juvenile endocrinologist.
From the point where I was admitted, my memories become very few. The next memory I have is three days later.
I had been in a coma for three days. I was in intensive care and had a nurse attending to me 24/7 for those three days. Once I was lucid, I was told I had type 1 diabetes. For me, it was one of the biggest reliefs in my life.
I saw that diagnosis as amazing news. On the way to the hospital, I had decided that I was going to die. So to be told that I was going to be fine was a massive relief. From that point forward, my amazing family and wonderful medical staff surrounded me. They supported me, educated me and gave me the tools I needed to manage my diabetes and excel.
After I was released from the hospital, it took a long time to get back into cycling. We had a very good family friend who was a cyclist, and he would come over and take me for rides around our neighbourhood.
We started out only going 1-to -2 kilometers. Slowly but surely, we progressed back to decently sized rides. From there, I built up my fitness and strength to be able to race again. Once I was back racing, there was nothing that was going to stop me.
Once back racing, the results started to come, and the fact I had diabetes was never something I thought about. I focused on being the best cyclist I could be.
Medalling at the Australian National Track Championships in the U19 scratch race was a big moment for me. It was my first national medal and will always be a special moment for me.
I think everyone has dreams of being an athlete or something equally exciting when they are children. For me, I was lucky enough that I had some amazing support around me and those dreams became a reality.
There was never a reason to let diabetes hold me back. It never has negatively impacted my life. My mum gave me some very good advice when I was first diagnosed. She told me that everyone has something they need to do every day to be able to function. For her, it was wearing glasses. For my grandfather, it was blood pressure medication. But everyone has something. Mine was type 1 diabetes. It was it.
Life isn’t perfect for anyone. It’s very easy to look for reasons to give up. You can blame bad sleep, less than ideal training, long travel, basically whatever you want. If you want to succeed, then you need to look at the positives. Focusing attention this way creates the reasons you succeed instead of the reasons you fail.
I want to keep racing and enjoy racing. I have been lucky to race all over the world in some of the biggest races. I hope to continue racing at this level for many years to come and educate, empower and inspire the next generation of professional cyclist around the world with diabetes.
On Team Novo Nordisk, we all feel like we are part of one big family. The jersey has meaning, and I feel proud every day to put on my Team Novo Nordisk jersey to race or train. The team is so much bigger then just the people you see at a race. We are racing for everyone around the world affected by diabetes, and they are all apart of the team.
