About

WHO EXACTLY IS “THE PHUNKY DIABETIC”?

KATHERINE ITACY, nee Johnston and formerly Godin, is a five-time Rhode Island state champion and an eight-time national champion in high school track and field. She held the Rhode Island state record in the girls’ high school hammer throw from 1999 until the record was broken in 2019, and held the Eastern College Athletic Division I Conference Championship record in the women’s twenty-pound weight throw from 2005 until it was broken in 2020. In 2017, the Rhode Island Interscholastic League inducted Kate into its Hall of Fame.

After graduating with distinction with two bachelor of arts degrees as well as one minor degree from The Pennsylvania State University, Kate enrolled in the Roger Williams University School of Law, where she later graduated magna cum laude from the school’s honor’s program and finished fourth in her law school class. Attorney Itacy (then Godin) went on to practice law in Rhode Island and Massachusetts for the next six years, five of which she spent running her own criminal defense law practice. For all five years that Kate ran The Law Office of Katherine Godin, Inc., she was selected as a “Rising Star” in criminal defense and appeals in Rhode Island Monthly magazine. During that time, she also served on the boards of directors for the Rhode Island Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Rhode Island ACLU, and the national ACLU.

In 2014, Kate closed her law firm and moved to the Mexican border in order to work as a legal research and writing specialist (LRAWS) for the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Western District of Texas. Unfortunately, complications from her brittle type 1 diabetes, the recurrence of a tethered spinal cord, and the onset of several other medical disorders caused Kate to retire based upon disability from her job in March of 2018.

Kate has written a memoir about the lessons she’s learned from her lifelong struggles with a diseased body. It’s entitled Relentless: From National Champion to Physically Disabled Activist, and will soon be available in ebook, paperback, and audiobook formats.

To contact the author regarding her memoir, which is currently available for paperback pre-order on her publisher’s website and available to purchase on Amazon as a Kindle book/e-book, feel free to use the Contact page on the website, or email Kate at contactkate@katherineitacy.com.

Kate also blogs about her experiences transitioning from a dedicated professional to a differently-abled person. Kate hopes to inspire other differently-abled persons, type 1 diabetics, as well as young athletes and women in general to go after their dreams without sacrificing too much of themselves in the process. She currently lives in Warwick, Rhode Island with her family and her miniature schnauzer, Bell.

To follow Kate on social media, you can follow her blog, visit her Tumblr page, her Twitter page, her Instagram page, or her LinkedIn profile, or find her on Facebook.