Jordy's Story

At age 9 I was a happy, healthy and active kid without a care in the world. But then I slowly started to feel very sick and neither I nor my family knew exactly what was going on. I became only a shell of the happy energetic kid I once was. After almost collapsing during the season opener of my basketball season I was rushed to the doctor’s office where they ran a bunch of tests on me…. Surprise; I now was Type 1 Diabetic. A normal blood sugar is right around 100, whereas my blood sugar turned out to be close to 800.  I remembered that the first thing I asked my doctor was “can I still play basketball?” and luckily he gave me the correct answer, as he said: “yes you can, but you need to be very careful as it is going to take a lot of hard work and self-discipline for you to be able to compete with all the other boys on your team”. That’s all I needed to hear. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy but I knew I still had a shot and I was going to take it. Unfortunately there are a lot of children that are only told that sports is a very dangerous thing and that they should avoid it. Children are very easily scared into staying away from sports by their doctors, which is an absolute shame. Being active and playing sports actually has a very positive effect on your diabetes as it makes it a lot easier for one to manage it, but it does require a certain level of discipline and dedication in order to keep all of your numbers in check. To spread awareness of the positive effects that sports can have on diabetes and to show people that Diabetes doesn’t have to mean you can’t chase and live your dreams I became an active ambassador and spokesperson for several major diabetic foundations across the world, first in the Netherlands and now in the US as well. I never had someone to look up to who showed me that anything is possible while having Type 1 Diabetes, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and try to become that someone to the generations after me. The stories of all the kids that I am in touch with have only added fuel to my fire as I attempt to inspire as many people I can. Today, I am living my personal dream of being a Division 1 Basketball Player as I am a Senior at the University of Greensboro, in North Carolina where we won our conference championship last year!

Jordy Kuiper