SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. — When Cassie and Jeremy Darr discovered they were expecting their first child after rounds of fertility treatment, they called their daughter their miracle baby. Her parents, Cassie and Jeremy, combined their names and named her Caremy.
They described Caremy as outspoken, independent and a bookworm since she was born. A few years later, her brother Gatlin, a shy but energetic personality, was born.
“You can make plans, but they never stay the same,” said Cassie.
The lives of the Darr family changed in November 2021. Caremy stopped being her normal self and showed symptoms of the flu. Her cheeks were flushed, she ran fevers and she started to lose weight from not eating.
“We asked her teacher if she was eating lunch at school because she started to get a little thinner,” said Jeremy. “She was already small to begin with, but she was losing weight, so we needed to know her eating habits at school.”
When they took Caremy to the doctor, her pediatrician advised her parents to wait a month to see if the symptoms subsided. A month to the day they were scheduled for a checkup, Caremy’s symptoms progressed.
“She woke up with this deep breathing, raspy, gasping sound, and I called the doctor and they said ‘If she’s doing that then let’s have you go to the ER,’” said Cassie.
In the middle of the pandemic, with a small child in the UPMC Carlisle emergency room, the wait was long and Cassie was worried because Caremy was growing lethargic.
“We could see her ribs, her shoulder bones, like shoulder blades, everything, and if you’re talking a matter of five pounds,” said Cassie.
When Caremy was seen, her room was filled with nurses, doctors and dietician experts who closely monitored her insulin levels and ran multiple tests to see exactly what her blood sugar was. Cassie said the glucometer in the hospital room read the word “high.” Caremy was then admitted into UPMC Carlisle, the hospital, and told she had Type 1 Diabetes (T1D).
“I got into that hospital room and saw her all skin and bones; it broke my heart. I had to leave the room for a minute and then Cassie told me that it was T1D and I had no idea what T1D was,” said Jeremy.
On Caremy’s team was dietician expert Marc Sinclair from UPMC Children's Specialty Services. According to Sinclair, 50% of the population has some type of diabetes, whether that’s borderline, Type 1 or Type 2. He said that only 10% of the population is Type 1.
“It was a crash course in what Type 1 Diabetes is and what your life is now,” said Cassie.
After hours of T1D training and education, Caremy, Cassie and Jeremy were sent home with a glucose monitor kit and supplies to keep Caremy’s insulin levels normal. But the challenges presented themselves more at home.
“It’s challenging every day, especially when I have to get poked because the pump just hurts a lot and especially when the needle doesn’t go in and I have to get poked again,” said Caremy.
“It’s a needle, and then you’re injecting that into your child, and the needle isn’t small,” said Cassie.
When at school, kids would ask questions about the Dexcom on Caremy’s arms and the sounds the glucose monitor kit would make. Instead of shying away from the questions, Caremy taught her class about what T1D is and how to treat it, using her teddy bear Rufus.
“Well, if you were one of my classmates, I would say ‘This is with Rufus, he’s just like me; he has Type 1 Diabetes too; these are his patches so I can try to inject if I want to start learning how to do it on my own,’” said Caremy.
Caremy has even taken her diagnosis and made it into advocacy by attending Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation conferences and sharing her story in the Little Miss Carlisle Ice Queen 2023 pageant, where she won the title of Little Miss Carlisle Ice Queen.
“She’s a little ball of passion and joy, and it’s good and refreshing to see that especially because again, living with a chronic disease isn’t easy,” said Sinclair.
Caremy was diagnosed when she was about 7 years old and just celebrated her 9th birthday. The Darr family has adjusted to this new normal but look back at that scary time to see what they could’ve done differently.
“The number one takeaway that I think people told me then that I didn’t listen to until you’re ready is it’s not your fault you did nothing wrong…it’s just something that happens,” said Cassie.