My Identity
NEED FOR SPEED We meet Matamata local Mason Todd, who wants to be a racing car driver when he grows up.
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hen we speak to Mason and his mum, Marie, his stomach is directing him to cook up something as an after-school snack. A busy 10-year-old, Mason’s favourite pastime is ‘blatting’ around a spare paddock on his Yamaha 110 bike with his brother, friends, and cousins. He’s been riding bikes since he was five years old and is in his element when grinding tracks into the paddock. Mason lives just outside Matamata on a dairy farm with his big brother Korbin and mum and dad. And a good mate called Bax. Bax is a springerdor – a mix of Springer spaniel and Labrador.
She joined the family last year as a puppy and has taken it upon herself to be Mason’s guard and BFF. She was welcomed into the whānau in the hope that she could be trained to be a diabetes dog, and she’s fulfilled that order by being there beside Mason in the night if Marie has come in to treat a low. It was last April when Mason was diagnosed with type 1. Marie says that, when she came home from milking, she would find the kitchen bench strewn with coffee cups, all half full of water. She thought nothing of it, assuming it was due to both of her sons and their friends choosing to pick out a new cup every time they wanted a drink. Mason appeared otherwise well, so she only started to notice what was happening when they went to friends’ houses where Mason would finish his drink and keep asking for more.
With Mason now in the background, pondering making pancakes, Marie explains the battle to get a funded pump for Mason. Although having regular highs and lows, his HbA1c was at an ‘ideal’ level of 48, thereby making him ineligible for a funded pump. ‘According to his blood tests, he had excellent control, but this didn’t take into account the spikes and drops that come with multiple daily doses of insulin and, as a result, the sleepless nights Glen (Dad) and I were experiencing, and the hours and hours of high or low levels, and the fact we just weren’t coping with the worry, anxiety, and helplessness. Something more had to be done.’ The Todd family reached out to Dr Martin de Bock, a private Paediatric Endocrinologist based in Christchurch who has clinical interest in adolescent type 1
Mum Marie, Mason, brother Korbin, and dad Blair.
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DIABETES WELLNESS | Spring 2023
