Most children get candy and sweets in their Easter basket, but when Baldwin resident Tina Rothermel was 10, she got fruits and vegetables.

Tina, now 46, was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes nine days before the spring holiday, which she dealt with for 28 years, until she received a pancreas and kidney transplant.

Juvenile diabetes, commonly called type 1 diabetes, causes excessive glucose levels in the blood, due to a deficiency of insulin secretion in the pancreas. Although 17 million people have diabetes in the United States, type 1 is the least common, affecting about 1.4 million.

Constantly monitoring her blood sugar and being cautious helped Tina control her diabetes, which remained under control until 15 years ago, when she got pregnant with her son, DJ.

One month into her pregnancy, complications associated with diabetes began to arise, even though she continually monitored her condition.

"I was having vision problems to the point I was not able to drive anymore," said Tina. "I was told that after I had the baby, it would get better."

But her vision took a back- seat to another complication; her kidneys began to fail during her sixth month of pregnancy. During the seventh month, Tina was in and out of the hospital.

It would be the last month of her pregnancy, with her son being born premature by two months.

"Anything that could have gone wrong went wrong," Tina said. "After I gave birth, my vision never came back and, as of right now, I'm legally blind and can't drive."

Kidney failure forced Tina to receive dialysis. She continued going to dialysis until 1999, when a nurse told her she was eligible to receive a kidney and pancreas transplant.

"Since I was a double organ transplant, I didn't have to wait as long and got it after nine months," she said.

She was taken to UPMC Presbyterian in Oakland to receive her new organs, which came from a deceased 19-year-old West Virginia boy. Although the operation was going to make her life better, Tina could not stop thinking about her son, who was 6.

"I wanted to see my son before my transplant since it could have been my last time, and just tell how much I love him," Tina said. "Before surgery, we sat together for seven hours, which were the longest hours of my life."

When a patient receives a double organ transplant, the organs usually come from one person and require one procedure.

There is always a risk associated with using organs from a deceased person, Tina's husband Dan said. Dan works as a nurse on the heart and lung transplant floor at UPMC Presbyterian in Oakland.

"The biggest worry we had was that the kidney wasn't going to work once they put it in," Dan said. "Any-time you take an organ out of anyone, especially a cadaver, there's always a chance it won't work. But that wasn't the case; both worked."

The family spent most of the day and entire night at the hospital.

"She went in in the morning and it wasn't until that evening they took her in," Dan said. "They didn't finish until 3 or 4 in the morning."

"When I was waking up, the first thing I asked was if my diabetes was gone, and they told me it was," Tina said.

"I checked my blood sugar for the first year after my transplant, even though I didn't have to."

Dan said the family has gained a good portion of their life back since Tina no longer requires dialysis three days a week.

"She's now as healthy as anyone could be with the transplant, and she doesn't get sick often," Dan said.

"It's not like most people think -- that you have to worry about everything causing an infection. She's now living a healthy and normal life and hasn't taken insulin since the second day of her surgery."

The diabetes may have been gone after the procedure, but the effects of the disease will never completely leave Tina. However, they will not get any worse.

"My doctor said I still have the body of a diabetic," Tina said.

Tina wanted to thank her donor's family for making her life better, but it took her more than a year to write. The words just wouldn't come to her.

"How do you thank somebody who went through such a tragedy?" Tina asked. "I don't know what happened to him, but you don't just say a quick 'thanks.'"

Tina sent a letter to the family a year after the surgery, but she never got a response.

Her only hope is others will emulate the kindness of the family in West Virginia that saved her life.

"My son's now in the ninth grade and I've watched him grow," Tina said.

"At the rate I was going before the transplant, I wouldn't have made it much longer.

"They gave me a whole new lease on life, something that wonderful came from a transplant."