Walk for a cure

I've blogged about the challenges that my daughter has overcome with her living with Type 1 diabetes. This weekend, I was quickly reminded how important technology plays into her ability to live.

This weekend we were on our way to grandma and grandpa's house for Valentine's dinner. We had stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few items on the way. My daughter Destin was "feeling low", meaning she felt as though her blood sugar was low, this is a common occurrence after a long day of dancing. She tested herself and the store and sure enough, she was low. I took her "PDM" case as her and my wife went to go find some quick carbs to bring up her blood sugar.

Her "PDM" is from a company called Insulet, it is her "Personal Diabetes Manager". It is about the size of a cell phone and has a built in blood glucose checker and also controls her Omnipod Insulin pump. This is what provides a continuous amount of insulin as well as additional insulin when she eats anything with carbohydrates.

When we got to grandma and grandpa's house, Destin asked me "Dad, where is my PDM?"

It was nowhere in the truck. My heart sank into my gut. Where did it go?

I immediately drove back to the grocery store and walked up to customer service. Asking if they had a lost and found, the lady at the store looked at me, saw my panic and said "little black pouch?" YES, they clearly had it!

She said they opened it, realized what it was and knew someone would be back soon for it. Talk about feeling like an awful father. Everyday we entrust our daughter to manager her diabetes care with this little black pouch, keeping track of it everywhere she goes. It has to be within quick reach every minute of every day. I had it in my possession for 5 minutes and lost it.

Driving back to grandma and grandpa's for dinner I quickly realized how much of a burden this is on our daughter. How responsible she must be at 8. She doesn't know or remember what it's like to be "a normal kid", this is her normal, her normal includes poking her fingers 10-12 times a day, getting woken up in the middle of the night to feed her juice, having to put new pumps on her at 3am when they fail, never being able to just have a snack, eat a candy bar, etc without first testing herself.

Destin dreams of a cure for diabetes and we have this same dream for her as well. Technology has allowed her to have as normal a life as possible, but the dream still exists for a cure. On February 27th, we'll be walking for the 4th year as Destin's Dream Team. Together with all of the walkers and donations by you, someday her dream will come true.

This is the one time of year that I do reach out to the community and ask for support. With the research that is taking place and the funds that JDRF raises, we do believe that sometime in Destin's lifetime, a cure will exist. To help us make this dream come true, please follow the link below and donate anything that you can. Every dollar helps as every dollar brings us closer to a cure for all of those living with this disease.

Thank you everyone.

Click Here to Donate

Technology - Has it bettered your life?

I typically don't write too much about what is going on in my personal life. However, I wanted to touch on something that happened this past week. For those that know me well, they know my daughter is diabetic. She was diagnosed as Type I Diabetic shortly after her 5th birthday. What this means is that she is insulin dependent and has been receiving between 6-10 shots of insulin a day since. She's an amazing person and has handled this so well I'm nothing short of amazed and proud of her.

Through the amazing power of Disney (yes, I'm still talking about medical innovation here :), our daughter learned from her Grandma that Nick Jonas from the Jonas Brothers was recently diagnosed and on a newer diabetes pump called the OmniPod, by Insulet. It is a self contained pump that is WIRELESS and TUBELESS! Having experienced the Jonas Brothers live in concert along with Hanna Montana (her first concert, 20k screaming kids, her crazy dad took her) it was clear that these were some of the first people in her life that she was in awe of. Anything the Jonas Brothers thought was cool, certainly she thought it was cool too.

After much research by myself and my wife, On Friday July 25th 2008, technology changed our daughter's life. NO MORE SHOTS!!!! She programs in her insulin dose into a wireless remote and it sends the dosage requirements to the pod and a few seconds later, her dose is done. It has already changed her life and it's only been 3 days.

This really got me thinking, how has and how does technology make our lives better every day? Isn't that its purpose? We advance technology to make our lives and the lives around us better. So when you're contemplating new technology, make sure you ask yourself "is this going to make my life better?" If the answer is no, maybe you should be buying something that will. Or better yet, ask yourself if your current technology is making your life better. If it's not, maybe it's time to find some that will.