Columnist Susan Snyder: This disease lurks behind unlikely faces

Friday, March 15, 2002 | 4:19 a.m.

Madison O'Neil wrapped me around her finger in about five seconds.

Maybe it was the dark, floppy curls or big, shoe-button eyes. Maybe it was her engaging smile or the giggles that made my insides tickle.

She's squirmy and 5 years old and learning to make letters.

This isn't what diabetes is supposed to look like.

Is it?

The most recent figures available from the local American Diabetes Association office show that 88,500 people in Clark County have diabetes, and 1,056 die from it each year. About 400 of those diagnosed each year are children.

Madison wears a tube that runs between a thin needle in her bum and a beeper-size pump concealed in a hip-holster. The pump feeds her insulin, just as her pancreas would if it worked right.

Every other day Dee O'Neil looks for a new, unbruised spot for her daughter's needle to be inserted. Madison's fingertips are pricked for blood 11 times every day to see whether the sugar level is too high. The pump is adjusted accordingly.

"But insulin is only a Band-Aid, and like any Band-Aid, it will give out," O'Neil said.

Madison has Type 1 diabetes. Her body produces no insulin. Type 2, which accounts for about 90 percent of all cases, is caused by the body's inability to properly use insulin or make enough of it. Obesity and sedentary lifestyles have raised Type 2 to epidemic proportions in the United States.

Left untreated, it can maim, blind, cause heart disease, stroke or kill.

Madison has relatives with diabetes, but it showed up when they were teens. Her signs appeared when she was about 18 months old. A sore on her nose wouldn't heal. She was thirsty all the time. Her hair kept breaking off. She was sick a lot.

One night she drank a gallon of water in less than an hour. Her doctor hospitalized her.

"It was a horrible thing," O'Neil said. "I had to leave the hospital knowing I was going to have to give her shots by myself. They throw you into it right there."

By age 2, Madison could give herself injections if Mom measured the insulin. Then she got the pump in September. It delivers insulin every 15 minutes, unless a finger-prick test shows she needs more.

Finger pricks must be done on the outside of the fingertips. Two fingers now are off-limits because Madison is learning to write. She can't hold a pencil with sore fingers.

On a recent morning, Madison and her 8-year-old sister, Lacey (who also giggles a lot), played with Hula-Hoops in the living room of their Las Vegas home, then ran outside to roller skate and draw chalk pictures.

O'Neil sat at the kitchen table and explained that Lacey could develop diabetes as a teen. And Madison shouldn't have children because of her organ damage.

"That will totally be her choice," O'Neil said. "But I worry. Will I have to bury her? They say the pump gives her an extra 20 years."

Madison loves school, swimming and her big sister, Lacey.

Can't we do better than 20 years?

We can try. On May 11 valley residents can walk or ride bikes to raise money for research in the ADA's annual Tour de Cure. Call 369-9995, ext. 7485. I'm pedaling 62 miles.

How far can a giggle take you?