Couple days ago, on the way out to dinner, I received a phone call from Michelle Crouse, a former co-chair for the 2010 Promise Campaign and a current regional and chapter grassroots leader for JDRF Advocacy. Michelle excitedly told me that the first New Member Outreach Initiative (NMOI) meeting in the country had gone off without a hitch. (Visit the NMOI site to find how you can sign up to attend a meeting with your newly elected Members of Congress.)This first NMOI meeting was with Representative Martha Roby (R-AL-2), who not only was warm and inviting to JDRF advocates and their families but also understood the importance of continuing to work towards a cure. Meeting attendees included:
An adult type 1 who has managed his diabetes successfully for 55 years 3 children’s with diabetes, one of them a delegate to JDRF’s 2011 Children’s Congress (CC11) And 3 mothers of type 1s
Why, you ask am I listing who attended the meeting? Well, it’s to emphasis that those of us that support a cure come with different perspectives. Be it adult type 1s who are looking to make the management of their diabetes easier or be it parents and their children with diabetes that hope and work toward a cure every day. Either way, all of us can get involved and make sure that the federal government continues to fund type 1 research. And as we continue to get closer to a cure, we can take advantage of the discoveries researchers are making along the way that allow living with diabetes easier! Newly elected Members of Congress need to hear from you, help us introduce our mission of a cure and JDRF to them. Sign up today and make a difference no matter who you are or what age you are!
Hasan
I have a deep compassion and empathic feelings for those of us with T1Diabetes. I can feel the emotion when reading about your experiences handling the low BS’s of your children and the outcry for a cure.
Hello, my name is Rick Mims, I have been a T1Diabetic for almost 53 years and I’m in great shape for someone my age (57) having T1D all those years. Yes, I have had some problems with my eyes due to length of time with T1D. I consider myself very fortunate.
At the age of 5, I would wake up every morning and my mother would have to boil the glass syringe and steel needles before taking my shot. My father seemed to love throwing the unit into my arm as if it was a dart and the dart board was 10 feet away. When I turned 7, I began giving myself my own shots. About once a week we would take the steel needles and pull them through a ball of cotton and if the needle pulled a cotton fiber we would have to sharpen them using a wet-stone. There are some places on my arm I doubt I could get a needle to penetrate.
Low Blood Sugars: Only if I had a dollar for every time it’s been below 50, I would be a millionaire. I can only remember once my mother and brother took me the hospital due to a low BS. My mother gave me a glass of orange juice and I bit off a piece of the glass and chewed it up cutting my gum. I know it scared the hell out of my mother. There are just too many stories to tell.
I have been through several phases on reacting to LBS’s. (1) As a child and early teens I would cry when it got really low. I find it difficult to express in words what or how you feel when blood sugars are low. Confused, lost in thought, and in my mind, I would be running down the same path over and over and over and not know why! Your mind gets so caught up in the confusion it forgets to tell you that your blood sugar is low and you need to get something to eat or drink. This is difficult for me today to understand.
Family: My father had T1D, there were six (6) children in our family, five (5) of us are T1D’s. One of my sisters became T1D with her first pregnancy (1963), but the doctors did nothing about it. Her first daughter was diagnosed with T1D at the age of three and is now 48. Her second daughter died at birth; the doctors said it was because of her (my sister’s) high blood sugars during pregnancy. My oldest brother died from kidney failure. My other sister, the only one of us without diabetes gave him one of her kidneys. His body rejected the kidney and he died a few months later. I sure miss him, damn this disease.
There are a lot of diseases out there, most worst than the one we have. Ours is treatable and most can live to an old age with proper treatment, checking BS regularly, and taking your insulin every day.
Please, if you have any questions I will be more than happy to try and answer them.
Rick
That sounds like it was a great meeting. Go Alabama!
I wanted to give you all a quick update on the New Member Outreach Initiative (NMOI) and which of the
Thank God the days of boiling needles that Rick describes are over, but T1 remains a challenge in so many other ways.
I'm glad to hear Congresswoman Roby was receptive to your message. Let's hope this marks the trend for all our other New Member Meetings: legislators who know the emotional, physical, and financial cost of T1 to our country and know that finding a cure for diabetes and it's complications is necessary. Great job, Alabama advocates!
Hello again JDRF Advocates! Even though February was a short month, JDRF Advocacy was busier than ever