A Twins’ Duet

By Winter D. Prosapio
Photos by Sarah Griffin

There are twins and then, there are twins. Identical twins, as alike in mind and spirit as they are in DNA and facial features, are seamless in their unity with each other.
Sara and Jennifer Roth are those kinds of twins. In fact, as children they were given a choice of punishment – corporal punishment or having to spend the night in separate rooms. They always opted for the corporal punishment. They couldn’t bear the idea of being away from each other.
It would take a deadly diagnosis to drive them apart, albeit temporarily. This same diagnosis would, in time, bring them back together – juvenile diabetes.
You’d be hard pressed to find two young women with more going on than Sara and Jennifer Roth. On any given weekend they could be playing violin – as a duet, naturally – at a wedding, selling their handmade soaps and wire crosses at a market, or studying their pre-nursing coursework at Texas Lutheran College.
Through it all, you’d find them together.
Twins don’t run in the family, according to mom Janice Roth. The first few years were challenging, as she learned how to navigate the world with two in tow, a challenge any mom with multiples can attest to. “I’m convinced that a mother of twins invented pay-at-the-pump at gas stations,” said Janice, “When you have twins, there is a time where you go absolutely nowhere… If you have to go shopping you have to take someone with you to get a second cart –where will you put the groceries otherwise?”
Janice and her husband Steven Roth decided when Sara and Jennifer were approaching school age, not to enroll them in public school, opting for home schooling. Janice was attracted to the approach to learning in a home schooling environment.
It was a decision they’d stick with for twelve years.
For the twins, having a built-in best friend provided the social interaction some home schoolers miss. For a decade they moved together along the same path, rarely diverging in their interests.
At one point it looked like they might have found a difference – music. At nine years old, Jennifer wanted to start learning how to play the violin after a Children’s Day at the San Antonio Symphony. Sara initially took a pass on the idea.
“Then I had my first lesson,” remembered Jennifer, “and Sara wanted to take them too.” Right then and there a violin duet was launched, with the twins mastering what many consider to be the most difficult of musical instruments.
It was only a year later that Sara suddenly started losing weight. “I was eating all the time, but I couldn’t be satisfied. I was losing weight, I couldn’t sleep,” she recalled, “I was exhausted. Lethargic.” She lost ten pounds in a single week and both Janice and Steven became increasingly concerned. After a visit to the doctor he told the family it was one of three things: severe anemia, cancer, or diabetes. They were in shock.
“How could Sara be sick?” Jennifer asked. They waited for test results, but Sara became sick overnight and the next day the family headed for the emergency room.
This was the first time in their lives Sara had spent a night away from her twin sister. It was the first time something so different was happening – just to her.
When she was admitted her breath had become fruity, her blood sugar was 651 mg/dl (normal is 100). She spent two days in intensive care, and doctors delivered the news: Sara had type 1 diabetes.
The disease strikes before the age of thirty, usually collapsing the lives of children and teenagers. People living with juvenile diabetes require insulin for life, and face a future riddled with life-altering – and life-shortening – complications.
In type 1 diabetes, the body’s immune system attacks and destroys beta cells in the pancreas. Without those beta cells, which provide insulin, the glucose stays in the bloodstream where it can cause serious damage to nearly every organ in the body.
The Disease requires constant vigilance. Every bite of food is calculated for its impact on the body’s sugar intake. Blood glucose levels have to be checked several times a day. These days, an insulin pump has largely replaced shots.
Kidneys can deteriorate. Nerves can be damaged. Sight can also be impacted. Then there is the blood sugar level. Hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, in its worst form it can cause unconsciousness or death.
Sara and her family learned everything they could about diabetes while she was in the hospital. She learned how to give herself shots. She learned the insulin injections were merely life support, not a cure, because there is no cure for type 1 diabetes.
They could only pray that Jennifer would not have the disease as well.
For two years, life for Jennifer and Sara was marked with something completely new – arguments. “We couldn’t relate. We were bickering all the time,” Sara said. She and Jennifer felt a sense of separation from each other that neither had ever experienced before. “I felt alone in a way, like I was just one person.”
For years leading up to the diagnosis, they looked at life the exact same way, and experienced life’s challenges at the exact same time. Now Sara’s future was filled with restrictions in diet, shots, an insulin pump, and a host of possible complications. Jennifer’s future hung in a sort of limbo – would she have the same disease? Was it merely a matter of time?
Two years after Sara was diagnosed, Jennifer was diagnosed as well. “None of us wanted Jennifer to have diabetes,” said Sara. “But in a way it was almost a relief. We could relate again.”
Almost immediately the fighting stopped and what had become two was once again one. The Roth twins were on the same path, fighting something other than each other.
“Juvenile diabetes has changed my life. It’s matured me in a way,” notes Jennifer. “If you don’t take care of yourself, this disease will kill you.”
“It can be painful,” adds Sara. “The needle will bend, or it’ll hit a bunch of nerves. That part stinks.”
Yet there is something so vital about Sara and Jennifer, this life threatening disease seems almost a bit player in their lives. They are living life well beyond most of their peers. They have two thriving businesses. They are in college with a clear idea of where they want to be in the future. They play classical violin, where a millimeter can mean you are completely off key.
“You can do anything. Juvenile diabetes can’t stop me from fulfilling my dreams,” said Jennifer. “You work around it. Nothing is impossible.”
Sara agrees. “It’s a hard road but if you keep everything in balance you can live a normal life. You can achieve your dreams.”
In the end, it’s not surprising they share the same exact attitude.
Sara and Jennifer Roth can be reached through their websites:www.therothtwins.com and www.heavenscent2.com or at (830) 608-9033.