Emily McCarthy
Age: 17
School: Casa Grande High School
Lives with: Her father, Mike
Favorite music: Jazz and pop
Favorite song: “Rewind” by Flo Rida and Wycleaf Jean
Favorite movie: “The Proposal”
Job: Snack bar clerk for Little League baseball in Petaluma
Pet: Seamus, an 11-year-old golden retriever. “He’s kind of like a brother.”

By BRETT WILKISON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Emily McCarthy says she knows no other way than to take the lumps life sends your way and make the best of it.
A 17-year-old senior at Casa Grande High School in Petaluma, McCarthy already has seen a fair share of lumps.
First, there was the death three years ago of her mother, Suzanne, at age 45 of a heart attack.
Then last year, McCarthy was diagnosed with severe Type-1 diabetes, the kind caused by low insulin production that often can shorten life expectancy.
Such blows might cause some to cower, waiting for the next setback, but not this upbeat Petaluma teenager.
“It’s made me want to be the best person I can be,” McCarthy said. “I don’t want to waste the time I have bickering with people or worrying about small stuff.”
In practice, McCarthy said that’s meant taking responsibility for her future and not taking her loved ones for granted.
She’s already contemplating a career in pediatric nursing, following in the footsteps of her mother, who was a pediatric intensive-care nurse at UC San Francisco.

Casa Grande High School senior Emily McCarthy was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes last year. Last month, she organized a fundraiser for a children's diabetes foundation. Photo by Mark Aronoff / The Press Democrat

McCarthy’s own focus might be diabetic care, a field that she said would allow her to use her own experience with the disease to set her young patients at ease.
“I have a passion for kids,” she said.
McCarthy’s supporters say the teen already has developed remarkable poise, compassion and courage, traits she displays almost every day, they said.
Just 14 at the time of her mother’s death and an only child, McCarthy helped her father, Mike, by taking charge of the funeral arrangements.
“From that point on, in my mind, she could do no wrong,” said Sean Millard, a Casa Grande music teacher who’s seen McCarthy — a trombone player — rise through the ranks of the school’s band and choir programs.
For her senior project this year, McCarthy organized a fundraiser that netted $1,700 for the Children’s Diabetes Foundation of the North Bay.
The effort summed up the take-charge attitude with which the teen has tackled her own diabetes diagnosis, said Diana Baldes, a former baby sitter and family friend.
“She really has her act together,” Baldes said.
Like her mother, who friends described as outgoing and generous, McCarthy should make for a great nurse, Baldes said.
“Even at 5 years old, she had a big heart for other people,” Baldes said.
The teen plans to begin her nursing studies at a local college after graduating from Casa Grande in June.
Her father’s steadfast support and her mother’s memory will help her along that path, she said.
“She always did her best to help other people,” McCarthy said. “She’s everywhere I go.”
You can reach Staff Writer Brett Wilkison at 521-5295 or brett.wilkison@pressdemocrat.com.