{"id":1732,"date":"2019-06-19T08:15:10","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T12:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/?p=1732"},"modified":"2019-06-19T08:15:18","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T12:15:18","slug":"40th-birthday-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/?p=1732","title":{"rendered":"40th Birthday Party"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

40 years ago, my parents were told to take me to the ER and get my blood taken. I was 6 yrs old. It took 2 nurses and a questionable doctor 3 tries to get a vein. They held me down, I cried. My Dad took me to McDonalds for pancakes (with syrup, ugh) afterwards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That afternoon, my parents were on the phone, my Dad walked out the front door and sat on a rock (yes we had a rock garden, weird) and for the first time ever, I saw my Dad put his head in his hands and cry. The next day, with my little suitcase and teddy bear, my parents took me to Hannehman Hospital in Philadelphia. I learned the word \u201cdiabetes\u201d and that I would have to take shots. In my 6 year old brain I thought the shots were like the blood draw the previous day and doctors would hold me down. For two weeks, I went to arts and crafts, practiced giving injections to an orange and slept in a room full of children with various ailments. I remember the boy in the bed next to me, Raul, who had a heart condition. His Mom cried a lot. There was a girl across from me who had been severely burned in an accident. The thing that scared me the most though, was that I wouldn\u2019t get to go to school. I was very eager to start 1st grade but now, something was wrong with me, I was sick and I thought I was going to be sent away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My parents and relatives visited me everyday. At night, my parents would call on the pay phone to say goodnight. My Dad would tell me I needed to be brave for the other kids. I would try not to cry, I would cover my face, begging my parents to please bring me home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Type 1 Diabetes treatments and research have elongated my life expectancy. Although there are a litany of items I hate about T1D, I believe some of the best parts of me are based on the idea that I live on borrowed time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outliving peers who\u2019ve been on the same path makes for some incredibly hard feelings. Testing technology that stands to improve people\u2019s lives is awesome yet extremely troublesome when one looks at the lack of access so many of us face. Diabetes is a tricky disease with no easy cure… yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven\u2019t fooled myself into thinking riding a bike will cure T1D, but certainly funds raised from walking and riding has directly impacted the fact that I am here. The eyesight i need to ride is proof of the technological progress and amazing doctors, in my lifetime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m the co-coach of my JDRF ride team this year. You\u2019d be hard pressed to find anyone (including me) who thinks I\u2019m a \u201cgood\u201d coach. I\u2019m not the technical person. Not even close. I care most about safety and that people enjoy the ride (in that order, safety FIRST). And I as I begin what marks my diabetes\u2019 40th birthday, I plan to live (and celebrate) with just as much vigor, determination and wild ambition as I guess I\u2019ve always had but it\u2019s tempered these days with a growing sadness for the increasing number of people who aren\u2019t here with me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My role in the diabetes space has evolved over time and I\u2019ve worn a lot of hats, jerseys, and a hospital bracelet with my first name misspelled, but one thing has never changed, and that\u2019s my belief that we can help make a difference. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you for cheering me, and all of those affected with T1D, onward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

http:\/\/www2.jdrf.org\/goto\/Alecia<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

40 years ago, my parents were told to take me to the ER and get my blood taken. I was 6 yrs old. It took 2 nurses and a questionable doctor 3 tries to get a vein. They held me … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[48],"tags":[4,5],"class_list":["post-1732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diabetes-notes","tag-diabetes","tag-t1d"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2tD0n-rW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1732"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1735,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions\/1735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}