The Independent – Oct. 15, 2015
By William Geoghegan
Ten days after the best moment of his soccer career, Ethan Scott lay in a hospital bed, wondering if that soccer career had any moments left. He had just helped lead his North Kingstown High School squad to an upset of Shea for the 2014 state championship. He’d been a step slow but kept pushing. When the intensity and adrenaline from the playoff run wore off, he was even more worn out. Blurry vision sent him to the doctor, and a quick test sent him to Hasbro Children’s Hospital.
He had diabetes.
“I was kind of in shock,” Scott said. “I didn’t know what to expect after that. I was upset.”
But his first question had little to do with blood sugar or insulin.
“It was the first question he asked the doctor – can I still play soccer?” said Amy Scott, Ethan’s mother.
The answer was yes, and Scott has spent the months since proving it in resounding fashion, game after game. He was back on the field just weeks after the diagnosis last fall, competing for his club team and in showcase tournaments. Now a senior at North Kingstown, he’s a captain and a starting left midfielder for another strong Skippers team. Earlier this month, he committed to play college soccer at Colby Sawyer in New Hampshire.
There have been challenges. And there have been plenty of soccer games.
“Not only has it not beaten him,” said Josh Scott, Ethan’s father, “it hasn’t even slowed him down.”
Monday, the Scott family will host a fundraiser for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation at North Kingstown’s home game against Bishop Hendricken, which is set for 7 p.m. With a family history of the disease, it’s a chance to give back, and almost a year after Ethan’s diagnosis, it’s an opportunity to reflect.
“I think it’s his coming-out party, so to speak,” Amy Scott said. “A lot of people don’t know that he’s diabetic. It’s a chance for him to say, ‘This is who I am, but I’m still Ethan Scott. I’m a diabetic, but I am Ethan.’”
Soccer has always been a big part of that identity, which is why it was at the forefront of Scott’s mind, even in the hospital. He grew up in the sport, plays it year-round and was eager to join the tradition at North Kingstown, which includes a state championship won when his older brother played.
Scott got his own signature moment in the title game win over Shea. The Raiders were undefeated. The Skippers, seeded seventh, had already knocked off the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds on their way to the finals. The teams were scoreless through 80 minutes of regulation and 20 minutes of overtime. North Kingstown won in penalty kicks. Scott made the second of the four shots that gave North the win.
He had no idea that his blood sugar that night was likely around 700, a number that could easily represent an emergency. Doctors were shocked he could even function, let alone win a state championship.
“They think that he was actually a diabetic through most of the season, but the intensity of play kept his sugar down enough that he was able to function,” Josh Scott said.
The championship game was on Monday, Nov. 10. The celebration continued during the week and into the team’s end-of-year banquet the next Sunday. All the while, Scott was in post-season recovery mode. It wasn’t unusual, and his parents assumed bouts of blurry vision might be the effects of a concussion.
“After every season, he’s tired,” Josh Scott said. “When he stops a season, he spends a week resting and then gets himself going again. We thought, ‘OK, he’s just run down.’ Then all of a sudden, he was drinking water constantly and we knew something was going on.”
On Friday, Nov. 20 – with the championship memories still fresh – Scott called his mom from school. He couldn’t see. Josh picked him up and they went to the pediatrician. The hospital was the next stop, and the Type 1 diabetes diagnosis came quickly.
Diabetes runs in Josh’s family, with his father diagnosed as a child. A niece was diagnosed at the age of 9. Since the disease often appears in childhood, Ethan and his family thought he was out of the woods by the time he got to high school.
The shock gave way to hindsight. There were clues in the second half of the season, like a loss to La Salle that Scott took unusually hard. He got beat to 50-50 balls. He lost weight.
“It wasn’t the same as it had been,” Scott said.
Doctors suspect he played most of the season as a diabetic, unaware that his struggles had deep roots. In Type 1 diabetes, the pancreas produces little to no insulin, the hormone that the body needs to get glucose from the bloodstream into the cells of the body.
Scott was in the hospital for four days, and he and his parents spent much of the time in classes designed as a crash course to help newly diagnosed patients. While the diagnosis connected the dots on the challenges of the past season, the Scotts immediately shifted their focus to the future. Josh and Amy wanted Ethan to live as normal a life as possible, and that included soccer.
“Our desire was to get him home, back into his comfort zone and let us manage it as a team,” Amy Scott said.
Scott’s goal had always been to play in college. With his junior season completed, it was time to begin the recruiting process in earnest. A showcase event – where college coaches watch from the sidelines – was coming up.
The Scotts didn’t need a jump start to begin the adjustment process, but they had one anyway.
“We had to get going forward,” Josh Scott said. “He had a showcase tournament two weeks after we got out of the hospital. We said, ‘All right, we’ve got two weeks.’”
Scott returned to practices with his club team and paid close attention to his body. Josh and Amy made spreadsheets and graphs, keeping track of blood sugar levels at the start and end of practices, with notes on how each number translated on the field.
“We figured out he needed to be at a blood sugar number that was much higher than most people anticipated,” Josh Scott. “Normal is 80 to 130. He starts a game around 270. But above 300, his performance goes down. There’s a small window.”
With a routine in place now, Scott eats before he heads to the field. As game time approaches, he checks his blood sugar. If it’s too low, he’ll drink some Gatorade. Too high and he’ll an administer an insulin injection. With his club team in the spring, as he settled into the routine, he was back to his old self on the soccer field.
As the fall season rolled around, the Scotts wanted to do something to help the cause. Managing diabetes is easier than ever but there is still no cure, despite promising research.
“The cure is so close,” Josh Scott said.
Local businesses have contributed and donations will be accepted at the game. There will also be a 50-50 raffle.
“We’re looking forward to it being a good night,” Amy Scott said.
The Skippers will hope to make it a little better with a victory. Heading into Wednesday’s game with La Salle, they were 6-0-3, good for third place in Division I. Scott has tallied two goals and four assists.
“I think we have a more talented team than we did last year,” Scott said. “It’s just a matter of getting ourselves together and playing as a team.”
It’s the kind of thing a soccer player worries about. Teamwork, strategy, drive – and certainly not blood sugar.
Ten days didn’t change everything.