When 11-month-old Miracle Janigan came out of the tub, her mother knew something wasn’t quite right. Her daughter hadn’t been holding down her meals, she was lethargic and now, she had purple lips.
“We rushed to the hospital, and they told me, ‘Lo and behold, your daughter has type-1 diabetes,’” said Marcella Thompson. “They said if I had not brought her in at that time, she would have been in a diabetic coma.”
Diabetes doesn’t run in the family, so the news came as a shock to the mother of three, who lives in Detroit and works at Focus: HOPE, a neighborhood center where Janigan also goes to daycare.
While the daycare has been great about accommodating the needs of Janigan, now 2, Thompson was finding it difficult to keep her daughter’s blood-sugar levels in check at home. As a single, working mother of three children, she needed some assistance.
Luckily, a group of Michigan State University College of Nursing BSN students led by Dr. Rhonda Conner-Warren were engaged in a clinical at the center and agreed to take on Thompson and Janigan.
“The reason why this clinical is so important … is our students are given so much from other community organizations and agencies,” said Conner-Warren, an assistant professor. “This is the one clinical I think where we give back the most. They develop their skills and learn who they are. The mother said she needed help, so we took her on to help with juvenile diabetes.”
The students, along with Conner-Warren and Focus: HOPE staff, worked with Thompson to develop strategies to manage her daughter’s condition. From identifying healthy meals and snacks, to introducing Thompson to apps that can help her manage Janigan’s blood-sugar levels, the students put together a holistic plan that involved the entire family so that everyone had the education and agency to positively impact Janigan’s health.
Conner-Warren said it was key to introduce multiple healthy eating options for Janigan and the family, rather than simply stating all the foods she couldn’t eat.
“Nobody wants to hear ‘no’ all the time, and definitely not a two-year-old,” Conner-Warren said.
Josie Smith, who just graduated, found the experience enlightening, as she never really considered working in a clinical setting outside a hospital.
“Coming here, I just realized how important it was to invest and advocate in your community members,” she said. “It was really beautiful and important to see how this will impact her life, so that I don’t see her in an (intensive care unit) later.”
Fellow recent graduate Ashley Przybyl shares those sentiments.
“It feels great to be a Spartan Nurse involved in the community,” she said. “It feels super nice to be able to have a chance to work with families as whole to give them the best situation possible so that they don’t end up in the hospital or in a worse situation.”
Thompson is grateful for having an ally in MSU. She now has a food scale and is diligent about ensuring the proper portion sizes of foods to keep Janiagn’s blood-sugar levels in check. Even better, her daughter is already responding well to some of the healthy meal options suggested by the students.
“She loves peas and I have done some baked chicken with peas and pineapple,” Thompson said. “It looks like it’s starting to work as promised.
“It’s difficult, especially being a single parent ... especially at home. I have a support system here.”
