Lauren Gonzales: Living with type 1 diabetes

Many lacrosse players walk out to practice with their practice uniform, their goggles and their stick. For Fresno State junior midfielder Lauren Gonzales, she has to make sure she brings her practice uniform, her goggles and her stick, but also her backpack with snacks and juice boxes.

Gonzales lives with Type 1 Diabetes - a genetic form of the disease where the pancreas does not produce enough insulin on its own.

There are two types of diabetes, the genetic kind (Type 1) where doctors don't know why or how it starts in a person. Then there is Type 2 diabetes, also known as adult onset diabetes, where the body has trouble processing glucose. There is no cure for either type of the disease, only different means of managing it.

November is National Diabetes Awareness Month and GoBulldogs.com sat down with Gonzales to learn more about her experience with diabetes growing up and making her way with being a collegiate athlete while fighting an internal battle with her body every day.

After being diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at the age of 12, Gonzales has learned to live with the changes in her blood sugar on a daily basis.

Gonzales has to take shots of insulin 5-6 times a day, on average. For a teenager growing up and wanting to fit in, this isn't always the easiest thing to do. Having grown up with an older brother who also lives with type 1 diabetes, Gonzales had the courage to move through life with her head held high.

One thing that has helped the most with Gonzales and her personal battle with diabetes is her sensor that she wears on her stomach at all times. With modern technology, this sensor allows her to go on with her daily life and it will send notifications and results to her cell phone if her levels are off in any way - high or low.

"I probably take anywhere from five to six injections [of insulin] a day," said Gonzales. "And then I do finger pricks throughout the day. With the sensor, I only have to do a few finger pricks throughout the day which is nice."

The sensor is something that she has to wear all day and every day in order to keep accurate readings of her blood sugar levels. Although not thrilled about having to go throughout her days with something attached to her stomach, she has come around to appreciate the sensor and the things it has done for her health and well-being.

Gonzales made sure to stress the fact that she has to monitor everything that she eats in order to know how much insulin to give herself throughout the day. Much like people who are on strict diets, carb counting is everything for Gonzales and her diabetes.

Although it's not necessarily ideal to have to carry around juice boxes and insulin at all times, Gonzales has learned to work with the cards she was dealt and continue to do what it is that she loves to do, no matter what that may be.

That includes playing Division I Lacrosse.

"When it comes to playing sports with diabetes, my doctor always says its like having a third job," said Gonzales. "Doing school and lacrosse, and managing my diabetes is a lot. I always have to be sure that I am eating just the right amount of food before practice, not too much or not too little. If my blood sugar goes high, I can't practice. If it goes low, I have to pull myself out to drink something to get some sugar, and that is a 15-20 minute process that I have to be out for. If it is too high, I normally have to be out for the whole practice because it takes longer for your blood sugar to drop than it does to go up."

For the Santa Ana, Calif. native, her health comes first. She does not hesitate to take herself off the field when she begins to feel weak or like her blood sugar levels are off.

There are a lot of people who are willing to do what it takes to keep Gonzales happy and healthy. As her team and coaching staff know of her condition, they keep an eye out and make sure that things don't seem off at any moment.

"Lauren has done an exceptional job at taking care of her body to compete at the Division I level for lacrosse," said Fresno State lacrosse head coach Jessica Giglio. "She has worked diligently to be able to give it her all at practice every day. What I appreciate about Lauren the most is that she never makes excuses and she pushes herself to compete in every situation. We are very lucky to have someone with this dedication and work ethic on our team."

Fresno State has a lot of available resources to ensure the health and well-being of its student-athletes are up to par on a daily basis. With a growing nutrition department and a top-tier sports medicine department, Gonzales is in good hands at Fresno State.

One person, in particular, who had helped Gonzales the most while on and off the field was former graduate assistant athletic trainer Adam Yetter.

Yetter worked with Gonzales since she came to Fresno State as a freshman in the 2016-17 academic year. With a slight worry, Gonzales was impressed with how well Yetter took to her diabetes and what he did to better understand her unique situation.

"When I came in my freshman year, you can tell he knew some things about [diabetes], but not a whole lot," said Gonzales on Yetter. "It is very different to study it and then ask somebody why they can't keep their blood sugar in between 100 and 150, because it is very mathematical and situational. It is easy to look at it and think 'I can't believe you can't keep your blood sugar at that level'. As you get used to seeing it first hand, you realize that it fluctuates. Adam was super great with that. He was willing to learn a lot which was really nice because some people are very stern in what they think about it. He really helped me a lot."

Fresno State knows the importance of keeping a great staff on board to help its student-athletes however possible, and Yetter was no exception to that. Yetter, a smart and open-minded athletic trainer, made every effort that he needed to in order to make sure Gonzales' health was up to par each and every day.

"It is really important to keep in mind that it is not just a case or something to manage, but a person that happens to have the issue," said Yetter on being faced with helping a student-athlete with diabetes. "It is an issue that can have extremely dangerous short-term adverse effects as well as long-term effects that are life-altering."

Yetter hit the books and spent hours with Gonzales, her endocrinologist Dr. Christina Reh, and Fresno State Director of Sports Nutrition Alisha Parker to figure out the best way to work with her individual case of diabetes.

"I hadn't had a student-athlete with any form of diabetes before, so I had to use my resources to remember what typical presentations looked like, just to remind myself what exactly it was and what typical management plans were like."

His efforts did not go unnoticed as Gonzales grew to trust him on and off the field. During practice, Yetter would get the results of Gonzales' sensor to monitor her levels while she was active. Along with being one of the few people who knew the details of her diabetes, Yetter was also one to get to know her and the fight within the best.

"Lauren has her own personality that is fairly dry and sarcastic, but always enjoyable once you get to know her," said Yetter. "That didn't change when we would talk about how her numbers were or how the changes in her medication were affecting her. She took it in stride and never felt sorry for herself. She went through a lot of changes in her normal life when she moved to Fresno and always had a receptive attitude towards the potential of more change or challenges. I am glad to have worked with her, but even more glad that I got to know her as a person."

As things sometimes get tough for Gonzales, it is no secret that she has influenced so many people around her in her time at Fresno State. Alternatively, the people around her have influenced her as well.

"The staff at Fresno State - in athletics and on campus - are extremely supportive with me and managing my diabetes," said Gonzales. "My coaches push me just like they do everyone else, and they have high expectations for me to succeed. They are understanding when I have to step out momentarily to check my blood sugar, give insulin, or to eat food. They are also always willing to set aside time for me to make up anything that I may have missed in practice. Whenever I tell my instructors on campus about my diabetes, It is amazing to me how eager they are to learn more about Type 1 diabetes and what they can do to help me in the classroom."

Everyone who has come across Gonzales can see that she doesn't let this affect her. As we shine a light on a very important, and often overlooked subject, it is important to know that diabetes is a common disease. In the United States alone, over 30 million people have some type of diabetes. Many people have their ideas of it, but those aren't always true to the reality of it.

Like Gonzales and Yetter both pointed out, it is an individual issue that is different for every single person. Often times, you may not even know that a person is battling the disease. Gonzales could be one of those people. From the outside, she is a normal Division I collegiate lacrosse player. But on the inside, she is battling her body every day.

An inspiration to many, Gonzales looks ahead to compete with the Bulldogs for the 2020 season this upcoming year - complete with her uniform, goggles, stick and juice boxes ready to go.

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Lauren Gonzales: Living with type 1 diabetes

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