B.C. teen gives back after life-changing diagnosis

CENTRAL SAANICH, B.C. -

Rather than the fleeting feeling of butterflies in his stomach while riding on a swing, Andrei Marti had started feeling an enduring sickness every day.

“I was dizzy. I had headaches,” Andrei recalls of that summer between kindergarten and Grade 1. “I was thirsty all the time.”

Andrei’s mom, Annelies Browne, took her five year old to their family doctor for a diagnosis.

“[The doctor] came back sort of white as a ghost,” Annelies says, describing how the doctor appeared after performing some tests.

“And she said, ‘Pack your bags.’”

They headed to the hospital and after three days there, another doctor confirmed that Andrei had Type 1 diabetes. He told the boy there would never be a cure in his lifetime.

“And Andrei looked at him and said, ‘Not in your lifetime, but in mine there would be,’” Annelies recalls with a laugh. “And I was like if anybody can handle this, Andrei can handle this.”

While Andrei could handle the daily injections, his family found the financial burden a challenge. They couldn’t have been more grateful that the Help Fill A Dream Charity stepped up to cover the first month's costs.

“It was a huge weight off our shoulders,” Annelies says. “And it was almost immediately that Andrei said, ‘I want to give back.’”

So, Andrei started doing all sorts of fundraisers —from selling plants, to organizing bottle drives, to getting a busker's licence and performing handstands on a downtown street.

“Learning a skill is one thing,” Andrei says of his handstand tricks. “But learning it to help others is pretty cool.”

Especially when your combined fundraising efforts grow from a couple hundred dollars, to tens of thousands.

“It was to help others the way they helped us,” Andrei says. “Because we know how much that meant to us.”

While playing soccer is his passion now, the14 year old says his purpose is helping others.

Whether he’s researching the connection between diabetes, diet, and sport for a science projects that go on to win national awards, or volunteering with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, or meeting with politicians at home and in Ottawa – Andrei is advocating for a cure.

“It’s worth every effort you can give,” Andrei says. “To use whatever you may be struggling with to help make the world a better place.”