Marlaina Goedel

Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at just five years old, Marlaina describes her life before islet transplantation as “complete chaos.”

She lived most of her life with many restrictions to accommodate her disease including a very strict diet, constantly checking her glucose levels, carrying a cooler bag with insulin, snacks and icepacks everywhere she went, and receiving up to 4-6 insulin shots a day. Her sugar levels would fluctuate dramatically but as a non-symptomatic diabetic she could not feel when her levels were spiking or crashing. Every night she feared that her glucose levels might plunge during her sleep, killing her and leaving her teenage daughter without a mom. Her daughter, partner and family have had to save her from potentially fatal sugar highs and lows countless times. She once crashed her car into a brick building after passing out. She achieved and then lost her dream of owning a horse farm because she couldn’t get her diabetes under control.

 “Diabetes is a family disease – it impacts parents, children, siblings, partners, everyone.”

Marlaina’s tipping point was one night when her sugar crashed and she collapsed. Her daughter (11-years-old at the time) found her on the kitchen floor and lifted her up enough to give her a drink. Her daughter shared that when Marlaina is ever late picking her up from school, her first thought is that she might be unconscious or worse.

“That didn’t sit right with me. I can’t live like this, and my daughter can’t live like this anymore.”    

At age 30, Marlaina was one of the first patients with type 1 diabetes to receive an islet transplant as part of an investigator-led clinical trial at the University of Chicago Medicine Transplant Institute.

With her newfound hope for the future, Marlaina has channeled her equestrian passion into a burgeoning career in horse therapy including massage, laser treatment and body alignment. She is also on a mission to pass hope along to others whose lives are similarly impacted by type 1 diabetes.