New kidney, new pancreas: Young mom thankful for life
Beacon News | Denise Crosby
Photo: Jovita Robles laughs as she jokes around with her husband, Mark (far left), and step-sons while she takes medication at home on Tuesday, November 20, 2012. Robles, who has battled juvenile diabetes most of her life and has had multiple surgeries in the past few years, is thankful to be healthy enough to cook a Thanksgiving meal for her family this year. | Jeff Cagle~For Sun-Times Media
For the last 22 years, since suddenly dropping 15 pounds at the age of 8, Jovita Robles has been in the fight of her life against Type 1 diabetes.
A doctor once told her having this juvenile diabetes is like having a full-time job that you hate but can’t get rid of. And it’s cost her plenty.
Pregnant and hypoglycemic, the Aurora woman passed out while driving on New York Street downtown, and had she not hit a Hollywood Casino pillar, police said she would have gone into the Fox River.
In 2010, her second daughter, born three months early because of the diabetes, lived only seven weeks.
Then, a few days before Christmas that same year, she took one look at her necrologist’ face after a checkup, and knew she was in for a horrible holiday. Years of diabetes, topped with back-to-back pregnancies, had caused both kidneys to begin failing.
The following April, Robles’ husband Mark donated his kidney and she underwent a transplant at the University of Illinois Chicago. But problems persisted when her pancreas stopped making insulin. Robles said she “cried like a baby†when doctors found out she was a candidate for the experimental islet cell transplant, where cells from a deceased donor are infused into the patient’s liver.
A doctor once told her having this juvenile diabetes is like having a full-time job that you hate but can’t get rid of. And it’s cost her plenty.
Pregnant and hypoglycemic, the Aurora woman passed out while driving on New York Street downtown, and had she not hit a Hollywood Casino pillar, police said she would have gone into the Fox River.
In 2010, her second daughter, born three months early because of the diabetes, lived only seven weeks.
Then, a few days before Christmas that same year, she took one look at her necrologist’ face after a checkup, and knew she was in for a horrible holiday. Years of diabetes, topped with back-to-back pregnancies, had caused both kidneys to begin failing.
The following April, Robles’ husband Mark donated his kidney and she underwent a transplant at the University of Illinois Chicago. But problems persisted when her pancreas stopped making insulin. Robles said she “cried like a baby†when doctors found out she was a candidate for the experimental islet cell transplant, where cells from a deceased donor are infused into the patient’s liver.
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