The 3 sisters in this picture are blessed to live happy active lives surrounded by friends and family who love and support them.  They play sports, travel to beaches and mountains, and excel in school.  What the picture can't show you is that one of the girls has an invisible illness for which there is  no cure, and her 2 sisters have a 10% chance of developing it as well. 

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) entered our lives over 10 years ago on Valentine's Day when Lydia was only 4 years old.  Since that day she has pricked her finger to check her blood sugar over 40,000 times, inserted 1,000 insulin pump infusion sites and 500 continuous glucose sensors, and given herself the equivalent of about 30,000 shots.  She never gets a single moment off from this disease.  It is with her at school, on the soccer field, swimming in the ocean, riding in the car (driving soon.... Lord help us), while she eats, and while she sleeps. 

T1D is unrelenting, but she has a smile on her face every day, and as her mother, so do I....because we live in an amazing time thanks to the invention of insulin, insulin pumps, continuous glucose sensors, and hopefully a "bionic pancreas" very soon.  None of these tools were possible without research, and none of the research is possible without donations from people like you and me. 

As Co-Chair of Fund-A-Cure for Tulsa's Promise Ball 2017, I humbly ask you to donate whatever amount you can to "Help us Write the Next Chapter" in our search for a cure.  We would love to see you in the ballroom on May 20th, 2017 and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for helping us in our fight to turn Type 1 into Type None.