Huntington Woods teen, family walk to raise diabetes money, awareness
in General
Published by the Woodward Talk on October 1, 2014.
By Joshua Gordon
HUNTINGTON WOODS — If not for a last-minute decision to take her daughter to the doctor’s office before she left for camp two years ago, Huntington Woods resident Lisa Knoll might have lost her daughter, Hannah, before she could come back home.
What triggered that decision in 2012 was that Hannah was 11 years old at the time and had lost 10 pounds in a year. Almost instantly, Knoll said, the doctor seemed to know exactly what was wrong, based on the questions he asked. And after her blood sugar level came back at 450 — the normal range is 80 to 120 — everyone knew.
Hannah was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
“Usually, it is parents who struggle with it more than the kids, and she was in survival mode and just-get-me-out-of-here mode,” Knoll said. “She was about what she needed to know and do to go to camp, but she didn’t go to camp that year. She was at dangerous levels, and if she had gone to camp, she could have died very easily.
“It had not crossed my mind it could be diabetes, and it was a whirlwind as we got educated and learned about what it meant for her.”
A few months later, Hannah and her family had the chance to take part in the Breakthrough T1D One Walk in Warren to help raise money and awareness for diabetes. In the second year, under the new team name of “Bloody Fingers,” the group of friends and family raised nearly $25,000 — the highest of any noncorporate team.
On Sept. 28, Bloody Fingers was back at it again as Hannah, her family and her friends walked around Warren as part of the event to raise awareness and funds.
“At the beginning, it was a little scary, and I really didn’t know what IVs were, but once they taught me everything, I ended up understanding it and got it pretty quickly under control,” Hannah, now 13, said. “(The Breakthrough T1D One Walk) is really important, because I want all this money to go toward research to find a cure, so in my lifetime I will be able to live without diabetes. I really appreciate my friends and family who walk with me and (help) to donate.”
The Breakthrough T1D One Walk took place in two locations on Sept. 28 — one event at the General Motors Technical Center and the other in Ann Arbor. Before the walk, event organizers predicted roughly 7,500 people would walk as part of the two events and almost $1.7 million would be raised.
Knoll said Hannah and the family got involved with the event through a group of friends who also have kids with diabetes. After walking the first year as part of their team, Hannah got more involved, helping to come up with the new team name, which comes from her having to prick her finger to test her blood.
“We got involved so we could make people in our lives and community and around this area more aware of diabetes,” Knoll said. “The most important thing is to raise awareness and money for a cure. There are so many cool things, like a bionic pancreas and islet cell transplants they feed into your liver that can make a person live a life of a person without diabetes.
“We 100 percent support the Breakthrough T1D and all their efforts, and all of the amazing, amazing research the money goes towards.”
In the two years since being diagnosed, Hannah said that having diabetes hasn’t gotten in the way of her doing what she loves to do, despite all of the extra steps she has to take in order to stay healthy.
“I have to check my blood seven times a day, and enter my blood sugar into my pump, and the carbs I am eating, so it can calculate my insulin,” she said. “Most of the time, I have it under control and it doesn’t come in the way of dance or hanging out with friends. Sometimes it is annoying to check my blood so much, and my friends have to wait for me to do things because I am checking, but I have still been able to do all the dance I want.”
For Knoll and the rest of Hannah’s family, they knew she would overcome the disease because it was in her personality, Knoll said.
“Hannah is living proof that she is not diabetes; she is a young and independent and stubborn girl who just happens to have diabetes,” Knoll said. “It is incredibly inconvenient and challenging, but we just give her the tools to be the best person she needs to be without diabetes.”
For more information on the Breakthrough T1D One Walk, visit walk.jdrf.org.
