Living with Type 1 diabetes isn’t just about checking blood sugar and taking insulin. It can lead to serious complications: kidney failure, heart disease, even amputations.
But today, advances in transplants and treatments are helping patients not only survive but thrive.
Kevin Rogers golfs, bikes, hikes, and he does it all without his own legs.
“They took off my left leg and then my right leg,” he recalled.
He lost them both to Type 1 diabetes. Diagnosed at just 9 years old, Kevin was able to manage until his 40s when his kidneys failed.
“My heart had stopped. Shocked me twice. And my dad asked him, he said, ‘Can we do it one more time?’” Rogers told Ivanhoe.
“They always say diabetes is a silent killer because it technically caused all the damages when you don’t know what’s going on. And then, when you found out, it’s almost too late,” explained Dr. Alvin Wee, program director of kidney transplantation at Cleveland Clinic.
Time was running out. Then, a second chance.
“I got a kidney and a pancreas,” Rogers said.
Simultaneous kidney and pancreas transplants are a life-saving option for people with Type 1 diabetes.
Survival rates after transplant: 97% at one year and 87% at 10 years. As for Rogers, there’s no more insulin. No more dialysis. No more diabetes.
“That’s what makes our transplantation so unique. The instant transformation, the lease of life, the second chance in life,” Wee told Ivanhoe.
But Rogers’ second chance didn’t come easy. After the transplant, he faced painful foot ulcers.
“I wasn’t able to do much of anything,” Rogers recalled.
Rogers chose a double amputation.
“Diabetes often coexists with microvascular disease. So, it’s difficult to have adequate blood supply, particularly in the feet and the extremities in order to heal these types of conditions,” explained Dr. Mark J. Berkowitz, an orthopaedic surgeon & director of the Foot and Ankle Center at Cleveland Clinic.
And now, for the first time in a long time, Rogers feels healthy and wants to spread hope.
“Just because you have a limb loss, whether it’s your foot, your leg, your arm, you don’t have to sit at home. We may not be able to do it as fast, but I can do anything,” he said.
Rogers developed kidney disease and started dialysis — something that happens to about one in three people with diabetes.
And those foot ulcers he battled? They’re linked to more than 80% of diabetes-related lower-leg amputations.
Doctors say that’s why prevention is key for anyone living with Type 1 diabetes. That means tight blood sugar control, regular kidney screenings, and daily foot checks to catch problems early.