017 | Why I Walk...10 Reasons
Approximately 1.25 million Americans have Type 1 diabetes. By 2050, 5 million people are expected to be diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. An estimated 40,000 people are diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes each year.
Type 1 diabetes, once known as juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, is a chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin. Insulin is a hormone needed to allow sugar (glucose) to enter cells to produce energy.
This month, I will be walking with “Nick’s Dream Team”. This is my first year walking in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund (JDRF) walk. I hope you will join my family and I in raising money for a cure to Juvenile Diabetes (T1D). It is odd to say it is my first year supporting diabetes research when Type 1 diabetes (T1D) has been thread throughout my life. Here are my 10 reasons (9 friends + yours) for walking this year:
Katy | My first exposure to diabetes was in elementary school when my preschool carpool buddy was diagnosed with Type 1. I didn’t understand the disease beyond Katy had to be careful with what she ate and got snacks from time to time when it wasn’t snack time.
Brian | The second time, I came in contact with Type 1 was when my cousin, Brian, was diagnosed at the age of 6. Seeing my Aunt Barb concerned about educating her son on how to keep himself alive as a young kid and then later in life ensuring Brian always had health insurance when he left college still looking for jobs has stayed with me.
Kate | My next exposure with Type 1 was in college when not one, but at least two of my sorority sisters had diabetes. Imagine learning to live on your own in a new environment, making your own food, and trying to make new friends…and having to take care of yourself with no back-up who understood your needs (a.k.a. parents, family, & friends).
Jody | Then in grad school, a few years later, I met the wife of one of my classmates. She too had T1D. She has also probably been one of the best educators on Type 1 I have encountered. During my time at grad school, I learned from her about the dangers of having children for women with T1D. And since then, we have remained friends on social media and Jody is constantly telling her truth…what she goes through to live with this disease…the ups and downs. It is something I deeply admire as I am a migraine sufferer and never seem to be able to communicate what my experience is. Jody, like everyone else mentioned, keeps moving forward and that is something to be in awe of.
Brian | My first group of friends outside of grad school in a new city…going through our 20s together. It was my real life version of “Friends” with some ladies and guys learning a new city together, going out, partying, and dating. One of the guys in this group had Type1…and it was our first time seeing a pump…which a few of us mistaken for something else. (I know, I know, silly girls.) After a few years, a bunch of the group moved away…all in different directions. Brian to Wisconsin and we kept in-touch through my visits for work and fb messenger. He eventually moved back to Chicago (his hometown), was going to grad school, and we had been in touch less than two weeks before I found out he had committed suicide by jumping off of his apartment building in Chicago due to depression…a side effect of diabetes. This right after my next story had occurred.
Leslie | A few years early (between meeting Brian and his untimely death), one of my sorority sisters moved to Atlanta and eventually moved in with me for a few months before her relocation to Orlando to be with her fiancé. Leslie was diagnosed with Type 1 from a young age and she managed it well. One night after our bowling league, we went to the Mexican place across the street from our place for tacos and margaritas. Leslie didn’t have any drinks and barely any food that night due to her blood sugar being high. The next morning, I was headed out to work and as I walked down the stairs I noticed out the window that Leslie’s car was still parked behind mine. This was odd because she worked at the Georgia Aquarium and usually went into the office by 6:45-7 a.m. to feed the animals. I walked back up the stairs and knock on Leslie’s door and she doesn’t answer. I opened the door and she was sleeping on her bed. “Leslie, Leslie, aren’t you late for work?” No response. I walked closer to her, she was unconscious, and breathing…barely. Not sure what to do, I called her fiancé. He had me read the number off her pump. It said 13 and it was dropping. (Average blood sugar for someone who hasn’t eaten in a while should be between 70-100. If the person has eaten within two hours, it can be up to 140.) He then instructed me to immediately go down to the fridge, get her a juice box, and described a specific pouch that I needed to find which she kept her insulin in. As I am running to the kitchen with her fiance on the phone, I told him I don’t think juice is going to do anything. She was too unconscious. At that point, he told me to hang-up the phone, call 911, and get her to the hospital. He would call her parents. So that is what I did. I had to call 911 for my roommate to save her life. The harshness of this disease was never clearer to me than the moment I saw my friend having four people working frantically to save her life with her blood sugar now at 7 and they had to resort to sticking her jugular vein to get medicine into her fast. Luckily for Leslie, her fiance, and I that day, the fire department and ambulance came quickly enough that they were able to save her.
Matthew | Years later, I was catching up with my high school guy best friend on life…it had been a few years since we had seen one another and I was surprised to find out he was no longer in the Navy. Here was a guy who had worked his whole high school career working on his grades, getting recommendations, and the likewise to get into the Naval Academy, not only got in, but played lacrosse for them, met his wife there, and served for our country. This was his life. Yet, it wasn’t anymore. He was diagnosed with Type 1 and was medically discharged. The career he had worked for was taken from him.
Meredith | Around the same time, my childhood best friend went through two rough pregnancies…one was a matter of life or death and the second was trying with gestational diabetes. (Gestational diabetes is a type of diabetes that is first seen in a pregnant woman who did not have diabetes before she was pregnant. For most women with gestational diabetes, the diabetes goes away soon after delivery and if it doesn’t it is usually Type 2.) After her second pregnancy, as recommended, Meredith got tested for diabetes and it was determined she had Type 1 diabetes. She had a family history of the disease and the disease usually sat dormant unless a traumatic event occurs. This was similar to what occurred for Matthew…only in this case it was pregnancy for Meredith. In both of these cases, these people were grown adults, married with their own kids, excelling in jobs, and they too became diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes Type 1 in their 30s. Imagine having to switch your whole lifestyle while caring for your family…not because you weren’t eating right or doing what you were supposed to, but because something changed in your body and it started attacking itself.
Nick | My most recent exposure to Type 1 has been my nephew, Nick. (I married his uncle a few months ago.) In the past few years, I have heard the stories about Nick’s original diagnosis when he was 11…having to draw blood 4-5 times a day to now only having to attach a sensor to his arm once every 10 days to scan himself with a special monitor. As well as see the concern his parents and family has for his health from living alone…well, that could be too risky, to always needing health insurance and even then, it is expensive…to his parents annually participating in the JDRF Pittsburgh walk to raise money for research which has a direct effect on Nick’s life and all of my friends lives.
This year, I am looking to make a difference. I am walking in the JDRF walk in Pittsburgh to support my friends above, I would like to walk in support of your loved ones, too. Please join me in supporting Type 1 Diabetes (T1D).
For every donation I receive, please let me know who you are donating in support of. I will be getting a special t-shirt made with all of the names above and those you are supporting to wear as I walk in Pittsburgh on Saturday, September 21st with Nick and our family as “Nick’s Dream Team”. Please assist us in the dream to find a cure for T1D, showing awareness, and increasing the quality of life for the 1.25 million people affected.
Thank you in advance for your support!
Kelly
DONATE HERE: http://www2.jdrf.org/goto/Kelly-Jean_Erwin_Gasper
