November is Diabetes Awareness Month
June 10th, 2012 is a day that forever changed my niece Ava's life. She was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. She was just finishing up second grade. Fast forward to today. She is a warrior. She is kicking its ass, but it still sucks so much. Her parents and sister support and love her through every single day of her tedious carb counting, finger pricks and painful injections. Her Mom Sierra wrote this post today:
Again it's November...Type1 Diabetes Month. Awareness for Ava and all the people who fight T1. every. damn. day.
This kid still has to prick her finger 10+ times a day. Inject multiple devices into her body every 3-7 days. She still has to count every carb she eats. She still has to deal with painful injections. Infected sites. Lows that pull her out of games & highs that slow her long runs. Every day she gets up and is a warrior.
Mom & Dad are still tired. We wake almost every night to deal with a low. We still worry about her when she sleeps in to late.... We worry every day that our 12 yr old manages a disease that most adults don't even understand.
Lola still worries about her sister and tolerates to many conversations about Ava's disease.
We are thankful for insulin, without it she would not be alive. We are thankful for many advances in the last 5 years that help us manage her disease.
And are so thankful Ava is a strong kick-ass kid who has never let this disease define her, or slow her down.
We will remain thankful for what we have to manage this disease. But never will we stop raising awareness & fighting for a cure.
Cheers to all the other T1 families in this damn club we never asked to be a member of.
And her Dad Leif wrote this post:
I love numbers, so I thought I would break this down mathematically. She was diagnosed 1606 days ago, so we have likely used 48,000 units of insulin, 11,200 test strips (no wonder we find them everywhere) and had to do math for at least 4800 meals.
My brain hurts to think about those numbers, but my heart hurts to think this doesn't end for kids with T1. With all the advancements in therapy it helps, but nothing will really change until we find a cure. Keep supporting the JDRF and the research that will help us solve this problem.
Donate here to help find a cure.
A couple of posts about Ava: Here and read about her fantastic Brave Bot!!