‘I stay away from sugar before a race’
Sisi Curtis- Oliver, 11, is a Type 1 diabetic and a skiing champion, having raced in slopes from the US and UK to Dubai. She also plays netball, tennis and golf
Sisi was only 3 when she was diagnosed with diabetes. Her mum Leona says she was in a nursery in Dubai, and the staff kept saying she was tired. ‘They didn’t think we were giving her enough sleep. And I kept her home once when she was ill in school, and she seemed very sleepy, thirsty and hungry.
‘Medically speaking she was in a coma, but she’d keep coming around and saying she was thirsty etc. I took her to a GP, who said we had to go into the hospital immediately. Three days later we left hospital with a type 1 diabetic child.
‘It was then all those questions, all those disappointed dreams. Will my child be able to do anything? Will she not have a long life? Will she be able to do everything she wants to? We were in shock and at the same time were still learning how to manage her.’
Sisi’s sure come a long way from that diagnosis. She now trains and plays netball with the rugby netball club Dubai Hurricanes. She plays golf, doing a junior tour recently. ‘Occasionally I go with my mum to the ladies golf competitions, where people much older than me play and I’m often the only child,’ she says. She has just gotten back from a three-day camp held close to the border of Oman.
And Leona says all of this has been possible mainly due to all the advanced tech now. ‘Especially what’s on her arm. Dexcom measures her sugar every five minutes, communicates that to her phone, and her phone communicates that with up to 5 iPhones.’
Which means when she was 10, Sisi went glacier skiing by herself in the UK after she was invited by a ski racing club to go train with them. ‘The diabetic community here were shocked,’ Leona says. ‘They said, you’re letting her go by herself? But she’s got her device.’
It sounds like a lot for an adult, let alone an 11-year-old. Sisi shrugs. ‘I just have to remember to bring my bag with me with my needles and my insulin. And I’ve to be very careful with my device. It’s just the remembering everything that is hard. But I’ve been skiing since I was 2, playing golf since I was 3, tennis since I was 4, and netball from when I was 7. So I’m used to it now.’
Sisi’s main sport is skiing, specifically downhill. She’s skied all over the world, from Vermont to Switzerland, France and Norway. She started racing at 8, and has also trained with an Olympic skier Chemmy Alcott. ‘This summer she learnt to crossblock, which we’re told is a big achievement for someone her age.’ This year she also won every UAE interschools event and achieved maximum points to be the overall UAE under-12 female champ. And a few weeks ago she won the under-14 UAE female interschools event. She has won the Dubai Police Ramadan Ski Championships under-12 female, come top 10 in the Anglo-Welsh championships under-14, and top 10 in the GB champs.
Sisi does take her precautions. She cuts insulin by 50 per cent when she goes race training because of the extreme exercise. ‘I know the routine now,’ she says. ‘I stay away from sugar before a race, and if I eat my eggs before I’ll do fine, then at the end I can go eat whatever I want. I can’t eat anything that makes my sugar go high before a race, because I get very thirsty, my muscles start to shake, I get very tired, and I’ll forget things.’
‘But I don’t get worried before a race, just excited.’
And she won’t let anything stop her. This summer she fell ill, went into DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) and nearly died while at home in the UK. ‘I was in hospital for about a week, but a week later I competed in a race, the GB champs. I just got up and decided I wanted to go skiing.’
‘You can’t expect perfection as a diabetic’, Leona says. ‘You have to say I only feel 90 per cent but I’m going to do it anyway. If she can dream it she can do it.’
Sisi says if during a race her sugar goes low, she doesn’t stop and give up. Instead she eats something and carries on. ‘So she has to be a lot more determined than other kids,’ Leona says.
She often tells her parents she wants to inspire other type 1 diabetic children. To canvass other kids whose parents are afraid to let them go on a school trip because they are diabetic. ‘Now they see her and they go ‘oh maybe it’ll be fine’,’ Leona says.
‘Idon’t feel different in any way,’ Sisi says. ‘When I do an activity I like to feel I don’t have diabetes. I like to completely forget about it.’
‘I think what she means is that skiing is a distraction,’ Leona says. ‘When she’s skiing she’s not a Type 1 diabetic. She’s just a girl up on that mountain with the snow.’
Sisi says if you want to do it you need to do it. ‘I don’t like to say I have diabetes and can’t do anything. I think everyone should still do it. It’s not going to ruin your life, but will actually make it better. I have a lot more muscle now so I think that’s really cool. And I can ski down really fast. I feel great about that.’
‘I don’t feel different in any way. When I do an activity I like to feel I don’t have diabetes. I like to completely forget about it.’