Walking to cure diabetes
Published: September 29, 2004
Six years ago this autumn, when he was only 12 and after weeks of weight loss and severe dehydration, Wayland’s Grant Frieling was diagnosed with Type 1 (juvenile onset) diabetes. His family was stunned.
“There was no history of diabetes in the family,” said his mother Lori. “I didn’t even know how to spell it.”
Though equally stunned, the Frielings were much better prepared this past Labor Day weekend, when their daughter Casey, 12, got the same diagnosis that her older brother received six years ago.
“It’s a mixed blessing,” says Lori. “After having lived with her brother’s diabetes, Casey knows that we know how to take care of her. On the other hand, there’s always the trauma of Type 1 diabetes in adolescence.”
To date, 18 Wayland children have been diagnosed with juvenile onset diabetes, a condition in which the immune system attacks the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. As a result, the pancreas produces progressively less of the hormone insulin, which bridges the sugar that is consumed into the cells.
Eventually, blood sugar levels rise dangerously high, and the insulin that the pancreas cannot produce must be replaced with daily injections.
If the condition is not treated with the exact dose of insulin at exactly the right time, the sugar in the blood will break down the blood vessels in all the vital organs. Eventually, this can cause kidney failure, blindness, amputations and death.
The issue for every child with Type 1 diabetes is to constantly monitor the blood sugar and to balance the life-saving insulin with exercise and nutrition. With an active child, the timing becomes very, very complicated. The youngster might have a soccer match from 5 to 7:30 p.m., for example, with the insulin kicking in at 6 p.m..
The situation can be further complicated by the adolescent growth spurt, as it was with Grant, who shot up two feet in the first two years after his diagnosis.
“The growth hormone fights the insulin,” his mother says, “making the dosage, the adjustments and the ongoing mathematical calculations they require just that more difficult.”
An additional frustration for Type 1 diabetics - and their families - is that on the surface they look like normal, healthy people.
According to Wayland’s Diane Phelan, whose daughter Kristin, now 23, was diagnosed with the condition 12 years ago, “Even people close to you don’t understand the disease. From day 1, it’s ‘just don’t have a doughnut and you’ll be fine.’”
Type 1 diabetes usually appears before the age of 35, most often between the ages of 10 and 16. According to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), founded in 1970 by parents of children with this form of the disease, more than a million Americans suffer from the condition.
Since its establishment, the JDRF has contributed more than $800 million in direct funding to diabetes research. Its mission is to find a cure for diabetes and its complications through the support of research. Typically, more than 84 cents out of each dollar contributed to the foundation goes to this purpose.
Fortunately for the Frielings, the Phelans, the Riches, and all the other Wayland families affected by juvenile onset diabetes, the JDRF is supporting research in a number of promising directions. Therapeutic targets for the immediate future include stem-cell research, islet transplantation and the prevention of beta cell production.
The annual 5K Walk to Cure Diabetes will be held this year on Saturday, Oct. 2. For the past three years, Wayland’s Team Cure has been the second-highest grossing family team in the country and, for the past five, the leading Boston family walk team.
In 2003, Team Cure raised more than $156,000, up from $110,000 the previous year. The top team came in with $420,000.
Team Cure will be walking again this Saturday with the goal of topping last year’s results. They will be joined by more than 500,000 men, women and children - including those from 5,000 large corporations and 3,500 family teams - in some 200 locations.
Nationwide last year, the Walk to Cure Diabetes raised $74 million for diabetes research. This year, the organizers are aiming at $80 million.
As for Grant Frieling, some 13,000 injections and 17,000 finger pricks since his diagnosis, he is settling into life as a freshman at the University of Notre Dame. His sister, Casey, meanwhile, is only at the beginning of her lifetime journey with the disease.
“There’s never a vacation from this condition,” says Chris Rich of Wayland, a junior at Boston College, who has lived with diabetes for 16 years. “You have to pay attention to it continuously or your life comes to a halt. The thought that this disease might be cured is an incredible dream - a dream that nears reality as we raise funds for cure research.”
The support for Team Cure, says Lori Frieling, “has been incredibly heart-warming. People understand more now than they did five or six years ago. These are beautiful kids and they look so fit. But it’s a tremendous amount of work to keep them stable and healthy.
“People in the community at large who support our efforts feel really good about doing something for someone else. It’s kind of like an old-fashioned barn-raising.”
To find out how you can participate or contribute to this year’s Team Cure effort, contact the Frielings at 508-650-9463 or e-mail them at “rfrieling@aol.com”, or contact the Riches at 508-358-5428 or e-mail them at “vbrich3@hotmail.com”
Tax-deductible donations, payable to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, may be sent to the Frielings at 5 Gennaro Circle, or to the Riches at 3 Spruce Tree Lane, both in Wayland, MA 01778. And once again, this year, your donations will really count, since an anonymous donor has stepped forward to match each dollar contributed.
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