Walking With Will

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Diabetes empowers 13-year-old to share story, give back

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  • From left, Tuesday Waltz, Nancy Harris, Ronda Robinson and Whitney Tubbs served food during Wednesday night’s burger and beans supper at The Coliseum. About 170 meals were served, with proceeds benefiting the American Diabetes Association.
    From left, Tuesday Waltz, Nancy Harris, Ronda Robinson and Whitney Tubbs served food during Wednesday night’s burger and beans supper at The Coliseum. About 170 meals were served, with proceeds benefiting the American Diabetes Association.
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According to the American Diabetes Association, about 193,000 Americans under the age of 20 are estimated to have been diagnosed with diabetes. Among those is 13-year-old Will Haley of Snyder, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2008 at the age of four.
“It started in July 2008 when I started getting symptoms,” he said. “I started getting thirsty a lot and losing weight. I got tested and we found out that I had type 1 diabetes. We went to Lubbock and got the information we needed about blood sugar levels, insulin and diet.”
The diagnosis was unexpected for the Haley family, who had no previous family history of the disease.
“We had no one in our family with diabetes, so we definitely weren’t expecting it,” said Stacy Haley, Will’s mother. “I think he had been sick for a while, and it just came to a head all of a sudden. Our doctor thinks that he may have had a virus at some point, and the antibodies, in attacking the virus, also attacked the pancreas.”
Stacy Haley said that 10 percent of diabetes cases are type 1, and anyone can get it. 
It’s not just diagnosed in juveniles, contrary to common belief.
According to Will and his mother, there has been a learning curve in living with type 1 diabetes.
“At the start, it was just my mom taking care of it because I was four years old,” Will Haley said. “Eventually, I was going to school with it, and after two years of having it, I went to a camp for kids with diabetes. I met two of my best friends there. I have other friends there too, and we really do have a good friendship. If we didn’t all have diabetes, we wouldn’t have met.”
As Will Haley has grown, technology has advanced to give his parents the ability to track his diabetes while still allowing him freedom.
“He wears a blood sugar monitor that reads his blood sugar constantly,” Stacy Haley said. “We have an app on our phones that’s connected to that monitor and shows us his levels and a chart of his levels throughout the day. It also sends an alarm if his sugar gets too low or too high, and we can add up to five people on the app to keep track of him. Having this gives him more freedom to do things on his own without mom and dad constantly being with him to check his levels.”
Will Haley also wears an insulin pump to help stabilize his blood sugar.
“People often don’t realize that he can eat anything he wants,” Stacy Haley said. “The sugar is not the enemy; the insulin is. His body doesn’t produce enough insulin on its own, so that’s why he has the insulin pump. He didn’t get diabetes because he was eating bad things. Type 1 diabetes is autoimmune, whereas type 2 diabetes is more lifestyle, diet and genetic-based.”
Stacy Haley also stresses that insulin is not a cure for diabetes.
“Insulin is not a cure; it is just necessary to live,” she said. “Access to insulin is imperative to live, and the cost of insulin has skyrocketed. It’s been around for over 100 years. Around 1921, the patent sold for $1 so that everyone could have access to it, and now people aren’t able to afford it, and some people are dying because of this.”
Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States, and there is not a cure for the disease. With increased insulin prices and no confirmed cure, research is crucial.
To help support research, the Haleys have done multiple fundraisers over the years and have donated to the American Diabetes Association. The fundraisers include the annual walk for diabetes in Lubbock with their Walking With Will team, a trap shoot, the variety show Will Power at the Ritz Community Theatre, fundraisers at Pizza Inn and the burgers and beans supper this week at the West Texas Western Swing Festival.
The Haleys hope to host another Will Power fundraiser for the association in early September before attending the Step Out Walk to Stop Diabetes in Lubbock on Sept. 22. 
“The goal for the Lubbock walk this year is to raise $600,000,” Stacy Haley said. “Lubbock’s walk raises the largest amount of money per capita of any walk in the United States.”
To donate to the American Diabetes Association in Will Haley’s or the Walking With Will team’s name, visit stepout.diabetes.org. 
“Diabetes is sort of a wicked disease because you can do all of the right things and still have a terrible number,” Stacy Haley said. “A number of things have an impact on it, including stress, illness, hormones and lack of eating. It is a constant balancing act between food and medication and activity and life.” 
Through the journey, Will Haley said that he has a main message and a lesson learned.
“Even though I have diabetes, I can still live a pretty normal life,” he said. “I’ve learned that it takes a lot of people to do something for that one person, and in helping them, you can help a lot of others.”