When a teammate found him, Cory Conacher was dragging his feet down the hotel hallway, walking aimlessly and speaking nonsensically. He was in his underwear and sweating. It was the middle of the night.
Conacher, a then-21-year-old at his first pro hockey camp, looked like someone who’d been partying too hard.
In reality, the situation was much more serious. He was a type 1 diabetic with dangerously low blood sugar.
Fortunately, his teammate acted fast to call the team trainer, who then called 9-1-1. Conacher received an emergency shot of glucagon and, within 10 minutes, had snapped back into a state of normalcy.
It was a reminder about how difficult — and relentless — his disease is.
“There’s times where I don’t want a test or I don’t want to do something that I should be doing,” said Conacher, a 10-year pro with 191 NHL games played. “Now, I realize diabetes is a 24/7 disease. You can’t slack; you can’t take time off.”
Still, Conacher doesn’t want it to dominate his life, or the lives of other diabetics. That’s why he starred in and co-produced a documentary called “Miracle, Baby” (available now on SUPRE’s YouTube channel), which details his journey as a pro athlete with type 1 diabetes.
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