Diabetes can't stop 12-year-old rising star

Bellmore sixth-grader is winning the battle against a challenging disease

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When Bellmorite Czarissa Moreno was 17 months old, her parents, Cysette and Felix Moreno, noticed strange behavior from the toddler. Although Czarissa was teething, she seemed unusually irritable.

“She cried so much, but I thought that was because her teeth were coming in,” Cysette said. “But then she had a diaper blowout one day that really raised a red flag.”

“We had to get her new clothes since she had wet herself through her diaper all the way up her shirt,” Felix said.

The couple took Czarissa to the doctor, who gave them unexpected news: Czarissa had Type 1 diabetes.

Living with diabetes

“I have to check my blood glucose level every time I eat something,” said the Dinkelmeyer Elementary School sixth-grader, who turned 12 last Sunday.

According to diabetes.org, Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in children and young adults. A Type 1 diabetic is unable to produce insulin, a hormone produced in the pancreas that regulates the amount of glucose in the blood. Czarissa, who is part of the 5 percent of diagnosed Type 1 diabetes cases, checks her blood glucose level eight times a day. And that is on a good day.
“When I’m sick, I have to check it many times,” she said.

Czarissa has learned not only to live with Type 1 diabetes, but also she is working to raise awareness about the disease.

As part of National Diabetes Month in November, Czarissa took part in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s One Walk. Faith Skelos, principal of the Dinkelmeyer School in North Bellmore, joined in the effort to support her.

Czarissa “wanted to invite the Dinkelmeyer School community to come and walk with her at this year’s annual JDRF One Walk and to contribute to the organization so that JDRF could continue to research ways in which to eradicate Type 1 diabetes,” Skelos said.

Czarissa formed the team “Czarissa and the Dinkelmeyer Diabetes Defeaters” and set a goal of raising $1,000. She collected almost $2,000.

Her awareness-raising efforts didn’t stop there.

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