Brooke Shields’s Daughter Opens Up About Sort 1 Diabetes (Unique)

Again in 2018, when Brooke Shields’s eldest daughter, Rowan Henchy, was a highschool freshman, she started to note some severe well being points. 

“To start with, I misplaced a whole lot of weight, actually quickly,” says Henchy, 21, whose dad is Brooke’s second husband, comedy author and director Chris Henchy. “However I used to be consuming two meals [for] every meal. I used to be consuming a lot meals and I used to be simply shedding weight even quicker the extra I’d eat.”

“One other factor is you are continuously peeing,” she provides. “After which my eyesight began to go after which I received a very dangerous toe an infection. So these are blaring, purple flags for undiagnosed Sort 1 diabetes.” 

Identified later that yr, Rowan has been managing the situation ever since. Now a university senior at Wake Forest College, the place her youthful sister Grier, 18, simply started her freshman yr (leaving her mother with an empty nest) Rowan has been identified to publish Instagram pictures exhibiting her Dexcom patch, as a solution to normalize the situation. 

However as her mother, Brooke, 59, says, “It was an adjustment.”

The analysis was one purpose, however Rowan had additionally switched colleges that yr. “The primary couple months had been tough as a result of all my mates at my old-fashioned had been hanging out with boys and I made a decision to go to an all-girls faculty after which I received identified with Sort 1 diabetes. So it was only a tough yr all in all.” 

“That college ended up being my favourite place and I’ve my finest mates on this planet and Grier ended up going there, so it labored out,” she says. “However freshman yr — it sucked. It was extra of similar to, ‘This occurred. How can I proceed residing my life and never be all unhappy and depressed?’ ”

Studying in regards to the situation and having the instruments to handle it made all of the distinction.

It additionally helped that she matured, recollects her mother. Says Brooke, “I used to be feeling helpless as a result of we did not know what to do after which she turned utterly autonomous with it. She was sufficiently old to manage the insulin to herself. And as a 14-year-old, giving your self pictures a number of instances a day is a very fast maturation course of. She turned very competent. She needed to develop up shortly.”

Rowan agrees along with her mother.

“There have been instances I wanted that I used to be identified at 5 as a result of I knew a life with out it,“ she admits. “However even from the 4 years that I’ve had it, there’s already been so many developments in know-how.” 

“I’ve a pump on my abdomen and a Dexcom​​ patch on my abdomen,” she says, of the continual glucose monitor which sends readings to a smartphone app. “It is a 24/7 job and I am by no means off obligation,” she says of monitoring her sugar ranges. “However on the identical time, it is behind my thoughts. It solely controls my ideas when my blood sugar is just too excessive or too low. No matter no matter headache, you discover a approach round it. It is one thing that I’ve and it is now nearly managing.”

Brooke says it took some time for her to really feel snug. “For a very long time she would not put on the monitor both, after which the pricking of the fingers all day lengthy, that lastly received annoying to her. So having the monitor and having it in your telephone [to monitor the levels], I can now look it up on my telephone after which I haven’t got to bug her.”

Brooke can also be doing her half to boost consciousness. She simply accomplished a movie, Quarter, a coming-of-age comedy a few younger lady residing with Sort 1 diabetes, written and starring Kelly Bascom, based mostly on her expertise of residing with the situation. Brooke and Rowan had been a part of the movie’s panel on the Tribeca Movie Pageant this previous spring to talk about normalizing the situation. “Kelly Bascom is the younger lady who wrote it and directed it and stars on this,” explains Brooke. “It is one of many first sort one diabetes motion pictures. There aren’t any diabetes motion pictures there. It is fascinating from a younger lady’s perspective. So I believe it may be an necessary film.”

For extra on our unique interview with Brooke Shields and her daughters, decide up this week’s PEOPLE cowl story, on newsstands Friday.