Diabetes can't stop young Whitefish swimmer

By DAVID ERICKSON / Whitefish Pilot

Imagine having to compete in a swim meet with a severe, life-threatening illness that you don't even know you have.

You're exhausted, you haven't slept and you're dehydrated. Yet you persevere because you don't know that anything is wrong with you.

Now imagine that you have not one but two serious and debilitating illnesses, yet you still swim with every ounce of energy you can muster. You not only compete, but you blow away the rest of the field and still leave time to do your homework at night.

You would have to be tough as nails, right? You would have to be Tessa Krueger.

Krueger, 10, a fifth-grader at Muldown Elementary School, is a member of the Wave Ryders swim team, and she was recently diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

It was back in November and the Wave Ryders were competing at a meet in Cheney, Wash., when her problem first surfaced. Krueger wasn't sleeping much, and she was constantly having to drink water.

"I was exhausted," she said. "I would jump in and swim to the other side of the pool, and I would be tired, like I just swam a 50-yard fly."

Krueger and her family had no idea that what was causing her exhaustion was diabetes because they have no family history of the disease. Her two sisters are perfectly healthy.

"She's always been a very upbeat kid, but she was acting very tired and lethargic," said Tessa's father, Art. "We didn't know anything was really wrong because she kept swimming and competing at a high level."

Art said it was clear to him and others at the meet that Tessa "looked like a skeleton" in her swimsuit compared to her athletic physique at previous swim competitions.

"I kept adding time (in swimming events) instead of dropping time, and I didn't really know what was wrong. I was hard on myself." Tessa said. "I also had bad cramps in my legs."

Tessa swam in that meet, but it was obvious to her family and coaches that something serious was affecting the young athlete.

"I just looked in her eyes, and they were dead," Wave Ryders head coach Deidre Loyda said. "I thought, 'This isn't right.'"

Tessa's family pulled her out of school one day and took her to Dr. Venemen's office to see what was wrong. The doctors found that not only did Tessa have severe diabetes — she also had a case of mononucleosis.

"The theory is that the 'mono' triggered the diabetes because it's often triggered by a virus," Art explained.

Tessa's blood sugar was through the roof, at 800 mg/dL. A normal amount is around 80, and if the number approaches 900, hyperglycemic shock can set in. Tessa had to spend the night in KRMC's intensive care unit.

"It was very scary," Art said of Tessa's ordeal. "We caught it fairly early, but it was a shock."

Art is the director of The Wave, and his health-and-fitness background allowed him to pick up on his daughter's affliction relatively quickly. Still, it would only have taken a few more weeks for Tessa to fall gravely ill.

"If there's anyone who can handle it, it's her," Art said. "She has a super outlook, and she's always worried about other people instead of herself. What I'm most proud of is that her grades never dropped. She always did her homework, no matter how tired she was."

Those sentiments were echoed by Loyda, who said her team missed Tessa's presence during her two-month recovery period.

"She's just a wonderful person," Loyda said. "She's very warm, and she always has a smile on her face. She's very strong."

It was the ultimate comeback, then, when not two months after being diagnosed, Tessa was back in the pool when the Wave Ryders competed at the annual (KATS) swim meet in Kalispell on Jan. 26-27.

Tessa placed an unbelievable second in her age group, making her the first Whitefish swimmer to attain a Northwest Age Group Sectional Championship qualifying time in the 50-yard fly. She earned the right to compete not only against the best swimmers in Montana swimming at the State Championships in Butte on Feb. 29 through March 2 but also with the elite swimmers in 14 Western states at the USA Swimming Age Group Sectional Championships in Federal Way, WA, on March 14-16.

Tessa, who will now have to inject herself with insulin four times a day and regularly prick herself to check her blood sugar for the rest of her life, is calm in the face of adversity.

"I want to swim for the rest of my life, and when I retire from swimming, I want to be a coach," she says matter-of-factly. "Wherever I live, there has to be a pool."