Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Ten years ago, Lohitha Kethu was shocked to wake up in a hospital bed attached to tubes and IVs.
“[The only] clue as to why I was in
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Ten years ago, Lohitha Kethu was shocked to wake up in a hospital bed attached to tubes and IVs.
“[The only] clue as to why I was in the hospital was a thick, text-heavy book on my bedside table titled ‘Pink Panther’s Guide to Understanding Type 1 Diabetes,’” Kethu said.
Kethu, who was 10 when their pediatrician diagnosed them with Type 1 diabetes, had no idea what was going on in their body and even felt somewhat responsible for developing the chronic disease. Even when Kethu’s pediatrician drew a model of the pancreas to explain the physiology of the disease, Kethu still couldn’t understand why it was necessary to take so many medications.
On top of it all, the Pink Panther guidebook was too technical to help the young child understand the disease.
“It was supposed to be friendly for kids but it’s just a bunch of text and numbers,” Kethu said. “It’s really helpful for your parents to read so they know what to do when you can’t take care of yourself at a young age.”
Now 20, Kethu wants to make sure diabetic children have access to more entertaining and relatable literature that explains the condition.
With the help of the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program summer fellowship, Kethu used skills they developed in the Scientific and Preparatory Medical Illustration concentration in the Department of Communication Arts in the School of the Arts to create a graphic novel that helps children navigate the disease.
Kethu spent the summer creating the heroine Jaci, a 10-year-old African-American girl who has just been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Kethu chose Jaci’s race after learning the disease disproportionately impacts African- and Native Americans.
Roughly 13.2 percent of African-Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes, compared to 7.6 percent of whites, according to the American Diabetes Association. Native Americans have the highest diabetes rates of any race or ethnicity in the United States, at 15.9 percent.
“I thought it would be important to make the main character African-American because it makes it clear that even if you are a different race or ethnicity, you can still have support and live comfortably with diabetes,” Kethu said.
Readers follow Jaci as she learns to cope with her illness while on a school field trip to an aquarium and at a sleepover. She learns to open up to her friends about her diagnosis and not be too shy to ask for space when checking her blood sugar, or embarrassed about needing sustenance when her blood sugar is low.
Jaci’s storyline models Kethu’s early sense