For many of us, playing sports is an important part of childhood. Sports are often where kids find new friends in their teammates and shared interests that shape their lives. For 14-year-old Daine and the Johnson family, sports have always been important. Daine loves sports, and so do his parents and siblings. His brother, in fact, is looking to play football in college. So for Daine, not being able to play sports has always been disappointing.
When Daine was 13 months old, he fell getting out of the shower. That fall resulted in a broken leg. His parents and doctors back home in Alaska thought nothing of this. Kids fall, kids get hurt, kids break bones. Daine got a cast, and the Johnson family nursed his broken leg as usual. But when the cast came off, it wasn’t even a week before Daine broke his leg again. Over the span of the next seven months, Daine proceeded to break not one, not two, but six more bones. “It was things my oldest son wouldn’t even get a bruise from,” recalled Diana, Daine’s mom. Diana knew something was wrong, but the medical care at their home in Alaska wasn’t advanced enough to run the tests Daine needed for a diagnosis. “Doctors said he just had bad luck,” Diana recalled, “but to us, it wasn’t IF he was going to break a bone, it was WHEN.”
Results from genetic testing in Alaska would have taken 3-6 months to receive. Knowing there was something wrong with their son, the Johnson family packed up and moved to Rhode Island in search of the medical care they knew he deserved. Two weeks in their new home, Daine slipped on a fridge magnet, completely snapping his thigh bone in half. His parents rushed him to Hasbro Children’s Hospital, where they very quickly got the answers they’d been searching for for years. “The orthopedic doctor on call walked in, took one look at our son, and said, ‘He has osteogenesis imperfecta,’” Diana recalled, “so from that moment on, our lives completely changed.”
Within six weeks of their move to Rhode Island, Daine had received a diagnosis and began treatments. As Diana learned more about osteogenesis imperfecta, she realized there were symptoms Daine had his whole life that she didn’t know to look for. “That’s the hardest thing, the not knowing,” Diana recalled. “As a mom, you know there is something wrong and that something is happening, we just didn’t understand it.” Daine’s condition prevents his body from producing a certain type of collagen, which affects his heart valves, lungs, hearing, skin, internal organs, and “pretty much everything,” his mom said. “I tell people it’s almost like driving a car blindfolded, because you just don’t know. We’re still learning. Doctors are still learning.”
It was such a relief for Diana and her family to finally have answers and work on a plan to treat their son’s condition. These treatments include IVs to keep Daine’s bone density as high as possible. In year 12 of his treatment, Daine has received more than 120 IV transfusions and recently suffered his 30th broken bone. “The breaks still happen,” Diana said, “just not as often. The treatments make such a difference for Daine.”
Though he was physically feeling better, Daine was still struggling with the thought of never having a team of his own. When he was almost nine years old, his family went to the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, where they met another family who told them about Team IMPACT. “It was immediate for me,” Diana said. “I was like, ‘We HAVE to do this,’ because Daine can never play sports, and he LOVES sports. I signed up right away.”
A few weeks later, Daine was matched with the wrestling team at Johnson and Wales. But he didn’t share his mom’s immediate buy-in. “He was hesitant because he didn’t really like wrestling or know much about the sport,” Diana said, “but we convinced him to give it a try.” And it wasn’t long before the team won Daine over. At his very first practice, Daine walked into the gym to an eruption of hoots and hollers from his new teammates. “They were in the basement in the gym, and we walked in and Daine just goes, ‘WOAH, okay, this is cool,’” his mom recalled. “It’s hard to explain, but it was like instant love with them.”
Soon enough, Daine was signing his letter of intent to commit to the Wildcats. His new teammates took him under their wing, showing him their best wrestling moves and presenting him with a team-signed singlet, which is proudly hanging on his bedroom wall. He attended weeks’ worth of pre-season practices, and at the team’s first home match, Daine was welcomed to the mat to flip the coin. He sits on the team bench at every match and rarely misses the opportunity to cheer for his teammates, attending as many home matches as possible and traveling to away matches when he can.
Some of Daine and Diana’s favorite moments, however, happen off the mat. “Before COVID, the team would come to Daine’s treatments,” Diana recalled. “They had it all planned out.” The hospital only allowed six visitors at a time, so Daine’s teammates would visit in shifts. “The team always split up and spent literally the whole day with him,” Diana said. “He loved it. He loved them. They’d play video games, sit there and talk.” Each year, the team attends Daine’s annual walks, and they celebrate big milestone like birthdays with him. Before long, Daine’s teammates started calling Diana “mom,” further solidifying the little brother status Daine held on the team.
Almost immediately, Diana watched her son change. “It was almost instant with Daine, having this change his life,” Diana said. With Daine’s frequent doctors’ appointments and therapies, Diana was worried they wouldn’t be able to make time for the team. “After a few weeks it just kind of became routine to make sure we make this a part of his life,” she said. “He fell in love with the team so fast. It was life changing for us.”
The biggest change Diana noticed was Daine’s confidence. He recently started his own fitness journey, inspired by the discipline and commitment of his teammates. “It’s confidence and strength that the guys have shown him,”Diana said. “Coach Lonnie always tells us that Daine is showing these kids how lucky they are to have these strong bodies and play their sport, but at the same time, they’re teaching Daine to have the same confidence and strength. He’s learned confidence and realized his own strength. Even more than physically, he’s one tough kid.”
Just as the team has given Daine strength, Daine has given his team courage. “They see him struggle. They see everything,” Diana said. “They know everything he goes through. A lot of them don’t ever get to see a child fight like that, so I think that’s what he’s taught them the most.” Because of Daine, Diana said, the team has learned to not take things for granted, to not judge someone who may be struggling, and to see him just as they see everyone else. “That’s something we had to deal with a lot when Daine was younger,” she recalled. “He was in body casts and sometimes looked at differently. He doesn’t always get teased, but he does get left out. He doesn’t always feel like a normal kid. That’s another thing the team does for us. They make him feel normal.”
“Every time they know he is struggling, they send messages,” Diana said. That first year, Daine connected with the entire team but grew particularly close to three teammates who have since graduated. This tradition of sending messages of strength started with one of those teammates, Tim Higgins. “Tim is the one who is closest with Daine,” Diana said. “Their relationship right off the bat was incredible. Tim always wanted a little brother, so it was instant.”
Years later, Tim and Daine still talk and text all the time. They play video games together and chat online. Whenever Tim and some of Daine’s other first-year teammates are back in Rhode Island, they spend their time with Daine, picking him up to go fishing or bowling, coming to his birthday parties, or going to the park to hang out. “Family for life,” Diana said.
And that family now extends beyond Daine’s teammates. Last year, Tim got married, and Daine and his family were invited to the wedding. Daine had known Tim and his wife for years by then, but when they arrived, Tim’s new mother-in-law, who Daine had never met, came up to him immediately and said, “You must be Daine. We’ve been hearing so much about you! Do you know how much Tim loves you?” If Tim hadn’t already known, he soon learned just how much he means to Daine when Daine conquered his nerves to deliver a wedding speech to Tim. “He worked on that speech for five months,” Diana said. “It was really sweet being a part of that day.”
Now that Daine has graduated from Team IMPACT, he doesn’t know every member of the team as closely as he used to, “but they know him,” Diana said. “He walks in, and they all know it’s Daine. It’s cool he’s still a part of the team and they talk about him when he’s not around.”
Though there are many moments and memories that make Daine’s time with the Wildcats special, it all ties back to the team itself. “This is special because of the guys, because of the team. He was a part of the team right away,” Diana said. “They took him in, and when he’s there, he knows he is genuinely part of the team. He doesn’t feel like a kid who is just watching them or observing or a kid they HAVE to let be there. That’s not how it is. He genuinely feels that he is a part of the team, and that’s one of the biggest things. He’ll never be on a team, but he’s on their team. For life. That’s for sure.”
In the Johnson and Wales wrestling team, Daine found HIS team. He found his group of teammates-turned-brothers, his “family for life.” Without the team, Diana worried, “he’d have a lot less friends, a lot less big brothers.” Once-quiet Daine came out of his shell around the Wildcats. He learned to love sports even more than he already did. He learned to love himself. He learned to be a teammate. “I think sad is what he would be, to be honest with you,” Diana said, thinking about life without the Wildcats. “I don’t know what life would be like without them. Thank you [Johnson and Wales wrestling] for taking him under your wing right away and showing him true strength and what a true team is. He has so much more confidence, and the fact that he can reach out to any of them at any time is priceless for him, especially when he’s struggling and going thru another broken bone or surgery.”
Both the Johnson family and the wrestling team know they will never have to find out what life is like without one another. Diana wants to give other families the same experience her son was given through Team IMPACT. She volunteers at events and advocates for Team IMPACT’s mission. “To me, Team IMPACT is life-changing, for you and your child,” she said. “This is for your whole family but especially for your child who, like Daine, just needed the strength and confidence and a group of brothers who would take care of him. That’s what I tell other parents. Don’t hesitate. Team IMPACT will be the best thing you’ll do for your child.”
