Sophia Binici
Date Posted: Sunday, April 01, 2018
Sophia was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was 12 ½ years old. At first she struggled with accepting her diagnosis and all of the changes that came along with it. Now she feels her experience with diabetes has brought out her strengths and shaped her into the person she is today.
In high school she proved that T1D has no limits when she became the first girl in her school’s history to play and score points for the otherwise all-boys varsity football team. “It was a challenge to manage my blood sugars,” she remembers. “I would run from football practice straight to ballet class.”
Sophia stayed active throughout college earning a minor in dance while juggling biology classes, working, and volunteering. In her spare time, she coordinated the annual JDRF One Walk on campus and also taught nutrition and healthy cooking classes at a local senior center.
She has spent the last 10 summers, since she was diagnosed, at the camps run by the Barton Center for Diabetes Education in Oxford and Charlton, MA. She started there as a camper but has since grown to work as a counselor, health care team member, and even on their administrative team. Camp taught Sophia how to be more confident in herself as a diabetic, become a stronger leader, and inspire her to work with children with diabetes as a career. She loves getting to be a role model to younger diabetics and “watching kids gain the confidence to try new things, whether it’s trying a new injection site or learning to change their site all by themselves.”
The best friends in her life have all come from working at the Barton Center Camps. They all keep each other motivated to take care of their health and stay on top of their diabetes. Outside of camp, they all hang out throughout the year and support one another. They all have diverse interests but are united by their shared experiences with diabetes.
Sophia is a graduate of Elon University and is currently working at UMass Chan Medical School as a Clinical Research Assistant. She hopes to one day become a pediatric endocrinologist or diabetes educator so that she can help children through the challenges of growing up with diabetes.