October 15, 2024 The power of hope

Elizma Smith had a gut feeling something was wrong.  She was 16 years old, celebrating the holidays with her family, when she started experiencing strange heart palpitations and chest pains. “I told my mom I needed to go to the hospital, and it’s a good thing I did,” she says. “My blood sugar measured at 19.9 mmol/L, and I was immediately admitted to the ICU. I was in complete diabetic ketoacidosis by this time, and it didn’t take long for me to slip into a coma for the next 10 days.” 

Understanding diabetes

It was a startling introduction to the world of diabetes. And for Elizma, it was just the beginning. “Once I’d awoken, I was so weak that I had to essentially re-learn how to walk. It was really hard for my family because while my dad had type 2 diabetes, type 1 was completely foreign to us, and it was extremely traumatic for my 16-year-old self.”  

Life with a new diabetes diagnosis was confusing. As a young teen who didn’t have much support, accepting and managing the condition was overwhelming for Elizma. Due to a serious condition called diabulimia, Elimza continued to eat what she wanted to without regard for hyperglycemia (also known as high blood sugar).  

Managing complications

After years of battling diabulimia—purposefully not taking her insulin as prescribed in order to lose weight—Elizma was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease in April 2023, only five months after arriving in Regina from South Africa.  As a result, the 32-year-old must do dialysis at home six days a week for four hours per session.

“These complications have stripped away the life I once knew as a teacher,” says Elizma. “There are many days when I fear that my time is running out sooner than I’m prepared for. 

But knowing that there are brilliant doctors working on this gives me hope [that] people with diabetes can still live life to the fullest.

Changing lives through research

One of those doctors is researcher Dr. Hong Ma, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of British Columbia. He’s creating a measuring tool to determine which beta cells are strongest and best suited for the Edmonton Protocol, the revolutionary procedure in which insulin-producing islet cells are transplanted from the pancreas of a donor into a person with type 1 diabetes.

“While there is no cure for diabetes, the Edmonton Protocol comes close,” says Dr. Ma. “It can reverse the effects of diabetes by transplanting healthy donor beta cells into patients. But we don’t have the quantity and quality of cells available to make this a viable treatment option for more people.

“A major factor is that not all islet cells are the same,” says Dr. Ma. “The amount of insulin produced by these cells is highly variable. If some beta cells produce more insulin than others, those are the ones we want to manufacture more of.”

Being able to select the strongest cells is essential, according to Dr. Ma: “The technology my team and I are building, thanks to donor support, is a tool to measure this at a cellular level. If we can, we can drastically improve the quality of cells at the scale needed.

If we can measure the performance of transplantable beta cells, there is a better chance we can one day reverse diabetes.

“Just knowing we have Diabetes Canada-funded researchers like Dr. Ma working on this keeps my spirits up,” says Elizma. “With science moving so quickly—and new discoveries happening every day in Canada—my hopes for a better future are getting even stronger.”

Celebrating wins

Although diabetes and the complications of her diagnosis have added immense challenges to her life, Elizma celebrates every victory. She’s proud that with the help of her amazing team, especially her diabetes nurse educator Cecilia Hamming, she was able to lower her A1C to 6.6% from 9.0% in the space of three months.

“My blood sugars are being managed better than ever before,” says Elizma. “And one day, a kidney transplant could be possible for me. No matter what, I will keep my hope alive and do my best to show others that life doesn’t end with their diagnosis.” 

 

Did you know? 

Diabetes Canada is currently funding more than 75 diabetes research projects thanks to our donors. With support from people like you, we help fund Canada’s most promising diabetes research. Visit Help End Diabetes to support more researchers like Dr. Ma, whose work could one day change the lives of people like Elizma and others with diabetes.