Janell Callahan's son was a healthy chunky toddler when his flesh began melting away, his clothes literally falling off of him. Nick began bedwetting and urinating all the time, classic signs of juvenile diabetes that were quickly proven true after an emergency trip to the doctor.
A test showed that Nick had a dangerously high glucose level of 500 and that day the family's new reality was born. Insulin shots, multiple glucose level blood tests, tracking food intake at every meal and snack — constant vigilance to keep him alive.
"It was horrible, right before my eyes he was dying,” Callahan recalled. "He was just two and a half when he was diagnosed, which nowadays is not too young; age doesn't matter anymore, it's an autoimmune disease.”
Fast forward 14 years and you have an active young man, a sophomore at Traverse City West Senior High School who is involved in orchestra, sports and Boy Scouts, earning the rank of Senior Patrol Leader, while maintaining an active social life. Nick has managed his own diabetes since he was eight years old and the honor student aspires to a career in the medical field.
"Nothing stops him, it is just another thing you have to deal with,” said Callahan. "He grew up real fast.”
The Callahan family, including the father, Bruce, and a younger brother, Chris, have been involved in a local support group for people with Type I diabetes for years. They both draw on and give strength to other children and families affected by it, some with young toddlers receiving a diagnosis.
One of the group's annual events is a Walk to Cure Diabetes, with the sixth annual event scheduled this year for September 29 at Sunset Park. The walk raises funds for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, a national, non-profit organization founded in 1970 by six couples who had children with the disease. More than 200 communities nationwide will hold a Walk to Cure Diabetes in 2007.
Last year the West Michigan Chapter hosted walks in Grand Rapids, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Lakeshore and Traverse City. Cumulatively, 6,000 walkers in these communities raised more than $1 million earmarked for diabetes research. Traverse City walkers raised $55,000 in 2006, an increase over the previous year that defied a downward trend in the other communities. All funds raised in Traverse City effort boost JDRF research in Grand Rapids and local event leaders are currently seeking corporate sponsors to help defray expenses.
"It's both a fund-raiser and education, because so many people need to know more what diabetes is about,” said Faye Zimmerman, who with her husband, Frank, plus Eugene and Peggy Miller of Leland are co-chairs of this year's local walk.
"People say, 'Oh, that means you can't eat sugar and have to have a shot,'” she added. "It is not something you can control with diet and exercise, you must have insulin.”
The ultimate goal of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation is a cure. This would alter the lives of the estimated 1.4 million people with Type I diabetes and the 30,000 people — 13,000 of them children — diagnosed with the disease every year.
"A cure would mean a life without taking insulin and freedom from even having to think about it,” said Callahan.
Zimmerman, whose son was diagnosed with Type I diabetes when he was 26 and is now in his 40s, said a cure would be transformational.
"Many diabetics say they don't mind the shot, they don't mind the pump, it's poking yourself with a needle several times a day to test the blood sugar levels,” she said of the main complaint. "What we really want is the cure.”
For more information on the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, see their web site at www.jdrf.org.