American Diabetes Association: Be an Advocate for Diabetes!

Be an Advocate for Diabetes!
Thursday, January 25, 2007
By: Kayla Clarke

With two children with type 1 diabetes you must remain positive.

I have fraternal twin girls and when they were 14 months old they were both sick with flu like symptoms. The doctors thought that I was just being over protected. Needless to say Kelsey was diagnosed a few days later with type 1 diabetes with her blood sugars being over 900! They day that she was being released from the hospital I did a fasting test on Kayla and her number was high too, not like Kelsey but I knew that I would have two children with diabetes. The doctor said just watch her her numbers, I don't think they thought that I could handle 2 children being diagnosed at the same time. While the girls where just babies my husband and I decided that we would never hide their diabetes because this was their lives. I remember the first time we gave a shot in public, we were in a food court at a mall and the girls were in high chairs. There was a few people staring at us as we prepared to give the girls their shots. I am glad that we started out by not hiding their diabetes. Today the girls are in the 7th grade and are almost 13 years old. We do the America's Walk for Diabetes each year and together we are very strong advocates for diabetes and the American Diabetes Association. For their next birthday, March 4th, they came up with the idea that instead of presents they would like people make donations to the American Diabetes Association, how cool is that!
The above photo is from one of our U.S. Congressmen's office during the American Diabetes Association's Rally for a Cure in Washington, D.C., June 2006.

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