Get to know our previous Hometown Hero Chase! This is his story as told by him and his family.

Chase was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at 6 years old. Chase started showing symptoms about a few weeks before his diagnosis that slowly got worse (going to the bathroom all the time, extreme thirst, and lethargic). Still, when I called our pediatrician, he said since it was the summer and extremely hot, the symptoms were from the heat. He did talk to us about Type 1 Diabetes, but with no family history of this, he wanted to wait to test for it. On Monday, June 5th, we finally got him into his pediatrician because Chase would not stay awake. They ran a blood test on him and determined Chase was suffering from Diabetic ketoacidosis and then sent us to the ER immediately. From there, they took more blood tests and double-confirmed Diabetic ketoacidosis, and we were told Chase had Type One Diabetes. Our hearts dropped, and we quickly had to grieve the carefree childhood our 6-year-old would no longer have. We were then sent to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and stayed 4 days getting Chase out of DKA and learning how to care for him. 

Our lives changed in a matter of hours on June 5th, 2023, and it will never be the same again. Chase, however, has shown how incredibly strong he is and how resilient he can be. He went from standing on his hospital bed screaming to take his diabetes away and terrified of shots/needles to actively showing his friends and family how his insulin pen works- what his Dexcom does for him, explaining what it means to have T1D. He truly amazes us every single day and is the bravest person we know. To his family, he is our biggest hero and our greatest inspiration.

Our family took this inspiration and tenacity and got involved with Breakthrough T1D the first year he was diagnosed. We do not have a lot of kids in our community around Chase's age who suffer from T1D, and we were looking for something to help Chase feel a little bit more normal after diagnosis. I found out that Breakthrough T1D does a walk every year in our area and signed us up right away. We have been doing the walk and other events through Breakthrough T1D ever since. Chase is also a very proud Youth Ambassador for Breakthrough T1D and absolutely loves being able to share his story with his peers and community. It also allows him to feel like a "normal" kid when he is around his Diabetes Buddies and their families. We have volunteered at many events and have gone on countless outings and always leave feeling so much joy and hope knowing that we are not alone in this fight for a cure.
 
Remember you can nominate YOUR Hometown Hero here. If selected, they come to a Blizzard game for free and are honored on field during one of our media timeouts!