The talented rower was 13 when he was told he had a lack of insulin in his system, which required major changes to manage the condition.

Claire McKenna said with no family history of diabetes, the diagnosis was a learning curve for all involved, however her son was determined to show people that it wouldn’t stop him from school boy rowing and pursing his dream of winning ‘Head of the Lake’.

Nick, 17, tried different strategies to keep his sugars up when training and fortunately for the St Patrick’s College student a pump made things a little easier for his second rowing season.

Ms McKenna said there were still times when her son would get frustrated because he wasn’t at an optimum level for training or was too scared to push himself to the limit on testing sessions.

“I remember the first time I found some information on sport and diabetes was a flyer in the waiting room of the diabetes educator,” she said.

“The first part of the flyer said ‘One in 20 people with type one diabetes die when doing sport’ – I put that one back and realised it was going to be trial and error.”

As Nick continued through the rowing seasons, he achieved his goal with several ‘Head of the Lake’ wins and went up a crew level. His final year ambition was to be in the senior second crew, which also meant completing at the National Rowing Championships in Sydney.

Preparation included training up to two hours per session, six times a week.

Ms McKenna said the diabetes educator worked out that Nick got low six hours after training, which meant if training finished at 7pm he would get low at 1am.

“It isn’t fun trying to eat lollies, raisin toast and a glass milo at that time of the morning,” Ms McKenna said.

“I spent weeks waking him at 1am to check his blood, just to make sure he would wake up in the morning.”

By the time the next ‘Head of the Lake’ came around he had been promoted to the position of stroke.

After a tight race and lots of screaming from spectators – especially his Mum – the St Pat’s team took honours.

Nick went on to compete at the Nationals in Sydney with the team, with the crew finishing third in the B final.

To cap things off Nick was awarded the ‘Brian Vear - most accomplished rower in the shed’ award at the end of season presentation night.

“Talk about proud parents,” Ms McKenna said.

“Having diabetes doesn’t mean you can’t achieve a dream, but with hard work, great planning, incredible determination and lots of support, you might just even go beyond your dream.”