JDRF stands for Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, an organization geared towards type 1 diabetes specifically. I first heard about JDRF when I got diagnosed and have been involved with them more heavily since college.
If you are someone you love is impacted by type 1 diabetes, I really encourage you to check them out online. They have different articles and link where you can get information and resources online, but they also have information on what’s going on in your community and people around you who can help support you.
JDRF’s mission is turn turn type one into type none by finding a cure for type 1 diabetes. What’s crazy is I don’t think we’re really that far away either. What once seemed like a dream now seems like it might become a reality. They have a research branch that solely focuses on research that helps prevent, cure, and manage type 1 diabetes.
This past year at the JDRF Gala I got to hang out with bunch of younger kids with type 1 diabetes and it was honestly one of the coolest things I’ve seen. To see them show off their omnipods or talk to each other about their glucose levels and it be normal. And then they would run around because they are normal kids. Part of it was sad, of course, that at such a young age they were discussing their medical history basically and the machine that is keeping them alive, but you also saw what an incredible community that JDRF had built for them. A community where they weren’t different than all their friends around them, but they were the same. They fit in a way that they don’t normally outside of that community.
Plus the parents!!! To get to watch them meet someone who GETS IT! How magical. Type 1 diabetes can bring on a sense of loneliness that is hard to describe. I’ve watched it with my parents and I’ve watched it with other parents who don’t understand why this happened to their child and feel like they’re incompetent because they can’t fix it or don’t know how to make it better or their kid’s numbers aren’t always perfect.
To be in a room with people who understand that you can do everything right, and you still may be too high or too low. To be understood in the struggles of fluctuations and bulky machines being attached to your body. JDRF brings community, and we as human beings, thrive when we’re in community with others.
I’m walking with JDRF on November 16th in Winston Salem and would love your support for this great organization that helps so many people! I’ll be posting a link to donate if you’d like to. Let me know if you have any questions about JDRF or how to connect with someone at JDRF and I’d be more than happy to help.
Talk to you later,
HP