Jake admits it probably did look that way to her, given that he would cook, eat and then immediately excuse himself from her class to the bathroom every session.
More alarm bells rang for his mum, who’d already been secretly monitoring his water intake, trying to assess whether Jake was drinking more because she’d encouraged him to, or whether there was an underlying reason for his unquenchable thirst.
“I was taking probably one to two litres to bed and drinking the whole lot and not getting up to go to the toilet at all,” Jake said.
Soon after, he was playing football for the Mooroopna Under-14s on a Sunday when he passed out.
“I had the ball, took a bounce, and as the ball went down, I went with it,” Jake recalled.
The next morning, he was off to see the doctor for a check-up and general blood tests.
“Mum just sort of threw in at the end, ‘Oh, can you do his blood glucose?’,” Jake said.
That maternal sixth sense resulted in confirmation that Jake had type 1 diabetes, a chronic autoimmune condition, where the pancreas isn’t able to produce the hormone insulin, which is crucial for regulating blood glucose levels.
Jake counts himself as one of the lucky ones, with many people falling gravely ill and winding up in a hospital before a diagnosis is reached.
He doesn’t recall ever feeling sick, despite his blood sugar level being 27.8 millimoles per litre at diagnosis, more than 20mmol/L above the highest ‘normal’ range in a person without diabetes.
He believes that early intervention likely saved him from any organ or neurological damage that might have occurred if it had gone undetected for years.
Now 33, Jake has been living with the disease for 19 years.
Throughout his journey, he had to learn new technology as it evolved; his latest management tool is a body-worn insulin pump that only comes off when he showers.
While more convenient and less shocking, not least to spectators, than the pens and syringes he used in the past, there are times when Jake still grows frustrated with the permanent accessory.
It’s also an expensive innovation, with the pumps costing about $8000 to buy outright (for only five guaranteed years) and the required consumables adding up to another roughly $200 a month.
The expense of diabetes has been more than financial.
It cost Jake the opportunity he wanted to join the army in his youth, made drinking alcohol with his mates riskier than for others and saw him alienated in a former workplace that wouldn’t allow him to bring in the essential life-saving food he needed.
The married father of two has struggled with fatigue, motivation, regulating his emotions and, of course, balancing his blood sugar level.
Jake’s beaming smile, cheeky sense of humour, and open and friendly banter could fool anyone into believing he hasn’t a worry in the world.
But he says staying positive is all about accepting the good and the bad days.
“You just need to keep in mind that it’s never going to be perfect,” he said.
“If you’re aware of it, if you know someone with it, just always be mindful that they can be having an off day with it.
“A lot goes on behind closed doors with it.”
National Diabetes Week runs from July 13 to 19.
For more information, visit: diabetesvic.org.au
You can listen to more of Jake’s story on the latest episode of Digging Deeper.
