I posted this on my blog a couple days ago, but I want to reach as many people as possible. So I'm sorry if you've already read this. But I'm flogging it again

One of my best girlfriends ever has three beautiful children. One of them has type 1 diabetes. Sara is a tireless crusader to finding a cure. She recently posted this on her facebook profile(it's a speech she either just gave or will be giving as part of her paticipation with telus's walk to cure diabetes), and it brought me to tears.

This will probably be the cause I ever ask people to donate to. Please support the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and help us find a cure for Mikayla's disease.

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I brought my daughter home from the hospital a happy, healthy baby. She was pretty easy as far first babies with frantic first time parents go. When she turned about seventeen months old things started to change. Mikayla was crankier than normal. She was thirsty and wetting through her diapers. She was hungry, all the time. She wasn’t interacting with us the same way she usually did. She seemed to be drained of energy.

Of course, it might seem obvious to you, because you know that this is about Type 1 Diabetes. But I didn’t know what Diabetes was. I had never heard of a child with what I thought was an old persons disease. I didn’t know there was another kind of Diabetes, a separate disease, all its own. I didn’t know my child’s body had turned on itself, that her immune system had attacked her pancreas. I thought she was entering the terrible two’s early. I thought she was hungry and thirsty because she was having a growth spurt. I thought she had a cold.

When I put her to bed on March 11, 2005, a day that will be forever etched in my mind, I called the nurses help line. I asked the nurse what was going around and what could I do to help Mikayla feel better. I said her chest had been wet sounding all day and she was so tired she couldn’t stop rubbing her eyes. The nurse told me to call 911. I thought she was crazy. 911? For a cold?

When we arrived the emergency room Dr. took one smell of Mikayla’s breath and our lives were never the same again. She told my husband and myself that Mikayla was seriously ill. She said Mikayla had diabetes and was in Diabetic Ketoacidosis. The wet sound was Mikayla’s lungs filling up with her own melting body fat. Mikayla was rubbing her eyes because she couldn’t see. Mikayla was dying . She told us that there was significant chance our baby would not survive the night. Everything went into slow motion. She kept asking if I understood what she was saying. Of course, I didn’t. Diabetes? From where? How? I could tell you exactly when and what candy she had eaten in her short life. It was on our trip to the Queen Charlottes Islands and it was a blue whale. Obviously, I didn’t have a clue about type 1 diabetes.

Things sped up quickly when I held Mikayla down for her first I.V. I didn’t know it then, but it would be far from the last time that held down her while she pleaded for my help. While she looked at me in confusion as I sang her favorite song into her ear.

The staff at PGRH worked hard and through a long night filled with words like coma and brain damage they saved my child’s life.

Mikayla’s is a common story among the parents of these kids, but I always stop here and think about the parents who’s children didn’t survive diagnosis. Type 1 diabetes is a very misunderstood disease and my familys hope is that sharing Mikayla’s story might stop another parent from putting their kids to bed only to have them never wake up again because they didn’t know the signs of this disease. If it hadn’t been for that casual call to the BC Nurses Help Line I would have one of those parents who’s child died.

The reality of living with Type 1 Diabetes started the very next day. Mikayla started off using injection therapy. It seems ridiculous to me now to remember how long it took me to stab myself with a needle. I thought they were nuts to think I could do this to my child. But, I did. Mikayla knew I didn’t like it. Even as she flinched away she would pat my arm and say “Okay Mommy, okay, okay“. The food charts and carb counts and insulin ratios were overwhelming. Mikayla took to sleeping on her hands to hide them from the blood sugar monitor. It broke my heart to watch a toddler trying to protect herself. From her Dad. From me. From the diabetes tools we always carried.

Eventually we purchased Mikayla an insulin pump. The pump has given Mikayla the closest thing she can have to a normal life but it hasn’t been easy. Mikayla is afraid of the site changes and fights with all the vigor a four year old can muster. My husband has to hold Mikayla down, every three days while I insert the inch long needle under her skin. It hasn’t stopped the wildly fluctuating blood sugars or prevented the low blood sugars. She has been hospitalized three times in the two years she has been using the pump and low blood sugar has caused Mikayla to lose consciousness twice putting her serious risk of seizure, coma and death. My child has been sick from high blood sugar so many times that when it causes her to throw-up she will step over it and keep playing. Twice this year she has stopped absorbing carbohydrates after a round of the stomach flue, leaving her in a continual state of low blood sugar for up to eleven days.

Every year kids die from what is known as “Dead in Bed Syndrome”. We put our children to bed healthy with good blood sugars and they don’t wake up.

Insulin is not a cure and we need to find one. The long term implications of heart disease, amputation, kidney failure and blindness combined every day struggle of living with this disease demand one.

Diabetes is never-ending. It’s every day. All day. All night. No break. Mikayla, who is sweet, funny and empathetic has been living with this disease for more than half her life. She doesn’t know life without it. She deserves to know what its like to eat without counting and measuring food, to play without worrying about low blood sugar and to look forward without planning every detail. She deserves to know what childhood is supposed to be like.

If you walk with us for a cure, or pledge your co-workers you will be helping Mikayla get one step closer to knowing what its like to live free of diabetes. Our family and the others like ours are immensely grateful and thank-you for any effort you can make in helping us give our kids the best future possible.

Thank-you..

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There is a link to donate directly to Mikayla's Hope, the team that Sara has assembled for the Telus Walk to Cure Diabetes, on the right side of my blog's main page - that beautiful little girl's picture will take you right to the Walk to Cure Diabetes website. Once the walk is over (in 10 days), I'll change the way the link works, and it will take you right to the JDRF and you can donate that way too. But until we find a cure - that link will stay there.