The One With the Walk-a-thon Kickoff

As most of you know (a few of you don't, I guess), I have Type 1 Diabetes. I'm fairly sure I've referenced this before, but I can't think of a particular entry in which I talked about it. So this one will be that.

I was diagnosed with diabetes in October of 1989. For those of you doing the math, this means that this October will be the 21st anniversary of the diagnosis. (Hey! My diabetes can legally drink!) I started out on 3 shots a day, then went down to 2, and then back up to 3 when, in 1999, I got my insulin pump. It's made stuff a lot easier, needless to say.

Type I diabetes is different than the diabetes you normally hear about in the news. The more "popular" type, Type 2, is (according to the Mayo Clinic Web site) known as adult-onset or noninsulin-dependent diabetes, and is a chronic condition that affects the way your body metabolizes sugar (glucose), your body's main source of fuel.

Type I (the type I have) is known as "juvenile-onset diabetes," since MOST of the time, it is diagnosed in young children. This isn't ALWAYS the case, however, as D as has a friend that I believe was in her 30's when she was diagnosed, and I heard today of someone who was 16. Still a child, yes, but diagnosed later than many.

Type I diabetes is a little more complicated than Type II and is much more rare. Of all of the diabetics in the world, less than 5% of those are afflicted with Type I. What Type I is, for those of you who wonder, is actually an autoimmune disease. That means that the immune system mistakes something that's supposed to be there (i.e. my pancreas and its insulin-producing beta cells) for something bad, and it attacks it. Hence, my pancreas doesn't do what it's supposed to.

D and I (we make up a "family team") went to the Team Captain's Lunch today for this year's Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation walk-a-thon. We were served. . .I'm not quite sure what, but it involved chicken salad and pasta salad, and a bunch of leafy greens that cost probably more than I could afford for as many people as were there. Some people, including one of our local newscasters, gave presentations, and there were several points where I'm pretty sure some people did or almost did cry.

I don't really feel like I need to go into as much detail as I was going to about the lunch itself (although, fun tidbit, I did run into one of my favorite teachers from high school, who is apparently pregnant and due on Saturday. Awesome!) but I want to do that thing that some bloggers do that some other bloggers hate, but we do it anyway, because we're talking about a cause we believe in.

Our team goal is to raise $500. I'm 100% certain we can beat this (maybe even double it!), but obviously, D and I can't do it alone. I'm aware that not every hit on my blog is from a new person, but if every time someone clicked on my page, they donated $1 to the JDRF, I'd have almost $3,000 to give on the day of the walk, which is Saturday, October 30, 2010. This is, incidentally, also my 26th birthday. (Yes, I'm aware that I've referenced my own birthday in the last 2 updates I've made, but this has been completely unintentional. Sorry.)

I'm going to give you guys a link, and that's this one. If you find it within yourself to donate even a dollar toward this walk, I (and the millions of people suffering from Type I diabetes) would really, really appreciate it. If you're someone I know In Real Life, I will also be sending you an e-mail in the near future, so sorry to inundate you with info for this. I would just like to raise an eff-ton of money this year. Apparently, North Carolina raised $7 million for this last year. How badass is that?

I'm also going to be putting the link at the bottom of posts until Oct. 30 and, if I can figure out how, I'll put something on my sidebar. Don't worry. I won't let you forget. :)

And thank you, thank you, thank you!