Carson Okeefe '19 Recruiting Profile

In my life, I have experienced many obstacles that I had to overcome. At the age of 11, my older sister was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of stage 3 cancer with a 10% chance to live. It was hard on all our family, but as the younger child I took it the worst. I will never forget that day. It turned my life upside down, I even had to finish my school exams a month earlier so that I could spend time with my sister in the hospital. It was a year of managing my hockey and school schedules and visiting with my sister which was 2 hours away from my home. My mom and sister would have long stays in the hospital, which meant nobody was cooking anything healthy for my dad and I. Eating out every night eventually caught up with us and I gain a lot of weight over the span of her treatments. Last year, my blood levels had reached the pre-diabetic range. I knew I had to change, especially because I don’t like needles. I cleaned out our food pantry by throwing away all our carbohydrates in the cabinet. I completely changed my diet and deleted all sugars and in 3 months I lost over 50 pounds. I am happy to say, my sister is a cancer survivor and I am completely out of the diabetic blood range. No more needles!