Kansas City,
16
April
2018
|
13:51 PM
America/Chicago

Fox 4: Children’s Mercy program helps kids with diabetes adjust to big life changes

By Fox 4 Newsroom

More than 250 metro children are diagnosed with diabetes every year, so a team at Children's Mercy is trying to make the big adjustment a little easier.

Fourteen-year-old Tanner Jackson has experienced a health resurgence since his diabetes diagnosis six months ago.

"I used to be really bad, but after diabetes, it made me feel like I'm a lot better than half of my team," he said.

"I've noticed a lot of changes in him as far as he's grown a lot, has more of an appetite, a lot more energy, just all around improvement," Tanner's mother Liza Jackson said.

Tanner and his mother have spent the last few months in the STAND Program at Children's Mercy. It's a program that Dr. Ryan McDonough said keeps kids from spending nights in the hospital and helps educate families of the changes that must happen after a child is diagnosed with diabetes.

"Diabetes is a really stressful disease," McDonough said. "It is a lot of education that has to happen very quickly, and that`s a big stress on families. What we see is that requires a big commitment away from home, away from other kids, away from routine, and the stress of being in the hospital adds to an already stressful disease."

 

Read the full article and see the story via Fox 4

Learn more about the services offered through the Children's Mercy Diabetes Center.