MBHS graduate seeks to thrive despite her diabetes: Molly Russell receives scholarship from Diabetes Scholars

When Molly Russell found out she had diabetes, her dad took her to McDonald’s to get a Big Mac and a milkshake on the way to the hospital. Her blood sugar spiked even more than the original high number, but he wanted her to have a treat because he wasn’t sure if she could ever eat those kinds of foods again.

Russell is a 2021 graduate of Mountain Brook High School and was diagnosed with type one diabetes at four years old. She recently received a $1,000 dollar scholarship for STEM majors from Diabetes Scholars, the only program that awards scholarships to students with type one diabetes. Only 62 recipients were chosen for the scholarship this year.

Mary Podjasek started the Diabetes Scholars Foundation in 2008 with a group of parents. Its goal is to acknowledge students for all their hard work, and make one small area of life an advantage for type one diabetics. In 2018, Podjasek partnered the program with Beyond Type One, a nonprofit that is dedicated to research and providing programs to strengthen the lives of people with type one and type two diabetes. The partnership allows for more reach within Diabetes Scholars.

Type one diabetes is an autoimmune disease that makes the body unable to produce insulin, which is the hormone that regulates blood sugar. Without it, the body can’t use the sugar in its bloodstream for energy, and it resorts to breaking down fat and muscle.

Before Russell was diagnosed with type one, her parents moved from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Birmingham. She would sometimes get sluggish and couldn’t recover from colds easily. Her parents assumed the sluggishness was because she had never experienced a hot Alabama summer before. However, the problem persisted and eventually they decided to investigate.

“Both my parents are pediatricians,” Russell said. “My mom took me to her office and found sugar in my urine and she was like, ‘that’s weird.’ So she called my dad and we went to the pediatrician and they checked my blood sugar. It was 356, so way too high.”

Blood sugar levels for a non-diabetic are usually between 80 and 120.

An article written by Stanford Medicine in 2014 said that people with type one diabetes make around 180 health-related decisions per day. Russell has to remember what foods she eats, what activities she does and how much insulin she gives herself, which means a part of her brain is always on. She must make sure her blood sugar is never too high or too low.

The problem is that half the time diabetes ends up doing the complete opposite of what you think it will do, Russell said.

For example, if her blood sugar is low and she eats a sugar tablet to raise it to a normal level, sometimes it overcorrects and makes her blood sugar levels too high.

Russell is a runner, and most of the time exercise makes her blood sugar go low, but if she has a lot of adrenaline in her system, it will make her blood sugar go high.

“You kind of just have to wait and see what your blood sugar is gonna do for the day, which can be kind of tricky,” Russell said.

She is on what is called a closed loop system, with a pump and a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) that talk to each other. This means that the CGM tells the pump what her blood sugar is, and then the pump goes in and corrects the blood sugar for the CGM. Each day, she checks her sugar with a finger prick to make sure everything is reading accurately, changes her pump and her CGM, calculates out how much insulin she needs and counts carbs.

Russell found out about the scholarship from Diabetes Scholars while looking for external scholarships online. She thought it could be a great opportunity, not just to fund college, but also to share her story and advocate for type one diabetes.

The program receives thousands of applicants each year for its scholarships. The committee awarding the scholarships consists of Beyond Type 1 team members, board members and other leadership. Jendricks is on the team, which she said it is a very difficult process. They spend a few days doing nothing but reviewing and picking recipients.

Applications open in February each year. Students report their grades, extra curriculars, clubs and interests. The committee approaches applicants from a holistic view, looking for well-rounded, stand-out students.

Russell is a Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) Youth Ambassador, a runner and a 4.0 student who has served as a medical translator at clinics in Honduras. She finds inspiration from other diabetics at Camp Sweeney, a camp she attends in Texas every year. Everyone there is a diabetic and the goal of the camp is to make type one diabetes feel more like a part of regular everyday life, so everyone eats together, checks sugar levels together and gives insulin together.

Russell also participates in the JDRF walk every year, where she leads a walk team called Molly’s Marchers. They raise money for diabetes research until coming together to walk on Walk Day. When she was younger, she went to Washington to talk to senators about why continuous glucose monitor funding is important.

“That was another situation where there were a whole bunch of diabetics all together,” she said. “and it was cool to be able to advocate together for something that we are all passionate about, which is diabetes research.”

Russell is attending Wheaton College in Illinois this fall, where she plans to study biology and Spanish. She wants get her masters in public health or become a doctor so she can  use the experiences she has with type one diabetes to give back to others and better serve her community.