By The New Pelican Newspaper | on February 16, 2023

By Christiana Lilly | New Pelican Writer

Pompano Beach – When Dr. Phyllisa Deroze asks for “the red reindeer,” her daughter Jalanah knows exactly what to do.

The seven-year-old runs for the red Christmas cookie tin with a gold reindeer on it – inside is an emergency kit with Starburst treats, emergency glucagon, glucose gel, and instructions for an adult should Deroze pass out.

It’s a part of living with latent autoimmune diabetes, and it’s experiences like these that motivated the duo, who reside in Pompano Beach, to write a children’s book that showcased the ways children help their loved ones with diabetes. 

In January, they published Diabetes Helpers.

“No matter who picks up this book, they’ll have an opportunity to see themselves represented here,” Deroze says.

In the book, there’s Jalanah who is a diabetes helper to her mother with latent autoimmune diabetes. Then there’s Antonio, who helps out his grandmother with Type 2 diabetes, and Grace, who helps her older brother with Type 1 diabetes.

Deroze remembers constantly battling fatigue and chronic yeast infections. Her doctor just told her to drink electrolytes like those found in Gatorade. Then she passed out in her bathtub, prompting a trip to the ER. While there, a nurse nonchalantly asked, “So how long have you had diabetes?”

She was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and spent six days in the hospital. Tired of repeating the same information over and over again to loved ones, she wrote a post to share. That would wind up being the first post in her blog, Diagnosed Not Defeated. Deroze now also runs the website Black Diabetic Info and is a global diabetes advocate.

However, Type 2 diabetes didn’t seem to check all the boxes. She kept asking doctors to check for type 1 antibodies, but they brushed her off. When she started vomiting during a trip to Orlando, it was her gynecologist who finally tested her blood and saw that she actually had type latent autoimmune diabetes, similar to Type 1 diabetes in that the pancreas does not produce insulin. In fact, her results showed that her insulin production was at .02 percent.

“I was overwhelmed,” Deroze remembers. “I went from thinking that I had type 1 diabetes and eating low carb would save me to now knowing that I have antibodies that are not allowing me to produce insulin and I need to give myself multiple daily injections.”

The constant testing took a toll on her body, leaving her with bruised arms, legs and stomach, so she switched to an insulin pump and a continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) device. With the scan of her cell phone, she’s able to see where her levels are at.

It was also around this time that she noticed that while playing, Jalanah would check her own make-believe CGM, look down at an imaginary phone, and smile at the results.

“She’s growing up seeing me manage diabetes,” Deroze says. “I started looking at children’s books on diabetes and all I found was children’s books about a child with diabetes. There wasn’t anything that would be a tool for a parent to talk to their child about diabetes. I didn’t see it and I thought that I would create it.”

Diabetes Helpers finally came to fruition in January, when Deroze and Jalanah finally got the first batch of copies in their hands. Kids can now see their family situation represented in a book, and in the back there are also coloring pages for an interactive element. Flipping through the pages, Jalanah shares that she named the characters and explains how she helps her mom by giving her juice and how the insulin pump gives her insulin when her sugar levels are low.

And of course, if her mother is hypoglycemic, Jaland knows to get the red reindeer to save the day – as any good diabetes helper would.

Diabetes Helpers is available for purchase on Amazon for $14.99.

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