Community Speakers Series: Ginger Vieira & Mike Lawson

“When I Go Low” tells the story of Jax the cat who likes to play soccer, eat sandwiches, and ride his bike with his friends — oh, and he also has type 1 diabetes! For Jax, one of the hardest parts of living with type 1 diabetes is noticing how he feels when his blood sugar is low. One day, he goes on a walk to find other kids with type 1 and learns a few new things about low blood sugars along the way!

Ginger Vieira, Author:

Ginger Vieira lives with type 1 diabetes, along with Celiac disease, fibromyalgia, and hypothyroidism. She is the author of several diabetes books: Pregnancy with Type 1 Diabetes, Dealing with Diabetes Burnout, Emotional Eating with Diabetes, Your Diabetes Science Experiment, and When I Go Low. Ginger is the Digital Content Manager for Beyond Type 1 & Beyond Type 2 and has written for most major diabetes websites, including Healthline, Diabetes Daily, and Diathrive. Her background includes a B.S. in Professional Writing and certifications in cognitive coaching. She holds several records in drug-free powerlifting.

Mike Lawson, Illustrator:

Ever since he was a young person, Mike wasted a lot of paper and ink on little drawings of people and animals. Most of them were thrown away.

Mike lives with type 1 diabetes. He uses daily injections via an insulin pen (Humalog and Lantus) to regulate his glucose levels. In 2012 Mike was hired at the Diabetes Hands Foundation where he worked for five years as the Senior Director of Programs and Marketing. Many of Mike’s diabetes doodles were used there to promote programs like The Big Blue Test, and the online communities TuDiabetes and EsTuDiabetes.

Mike now works for a theater production company in San Francisco. He continues to use his voice as a person with diabetes in the #insulin4all movement – a web-based, grassroots effort to help make insulin more affordable and accessible for everyone.