The following was written by guest contributor, Brock Phillips. Brock serves as a board member at the Minnesota and Dakotas Chapter of Breakthrough T1D.
July 1, 2009 is a date that holds special importance to my family. It began like most any other sunny summer day in Seattle, WA for my wife, Valeriana and 2 young daughters, Isabella (3 1/2) and Adriana (1 1/2) while I went into the office.
We had scheduled a pediatrician appointment for our 3 year old, Isabella – as something was “off”. She had stopped napping but was cranky, getting sluggish in the mid-afternoons but refusing to sleep. My wife took her in, and they did some basic tests. The doctor that managed the office, Richard Mauseth, happened to be a leading pediatric endocrinologist, unbeknownst to us. He immediately recognized the signs, and had my wife call me and tell me to come in – and to take Isabella down to get lunch with some carbs and come back for some tests as he thought it was possible based on early indications that she may have type 1 diabetes. We went to the park, let Isabella eat anything she wanted and then came back to the pediatricians office.
The nurse took Isabella’s blood sugar, and it was nearly 400. Now, that meant nothing to us as we didn’t understand what’s “good” and what isn’t. Dr. Mauseth diagnosed her right there as type 1 diabetic (T1D). Immediately, my wife and I felt like things went in slow motion as we tried to comprehend the situation and what it meant. We had family from Brazil coming in to town and the 4th of July holiday coming up. We had to pin Isabella to the ground, her screaming as we injected her with insulin – after telling her before going to the doctors that we don’t think she needs shots. She was crying, the two of us were crying, it’s a feeling I’ll never forget. As we finished the shot, we looked at Dr. Mauseth to understand if this was our new life. He told us it will get better and he will be there to help us. Our story deviates from most, we didn’t go to the hospital. Dr. Mauseth said “I’ll walk you through this” and we literally talked to him every two-three hours for the next week to understand how to calculate dosage of insulin, how to count carbs etc. Isabella never went to the hospital, which we are beyond thankful for.
From there, we became heavily involved with JDRF/Breakthrough T1D as we wanted to learn more and be part of a community with similar circumstances. It’s been huge for all of us, and Isabella has turned this diagnosis into something that fuels her and has provided unique opportunities. She has been an ambassador for the JDRF Beat the Bridge race, telling her story to large companies such as Nordstrom and Microsoft. Additional opportunities have come up to fund raise and be engaged – her favorite of which is being selected to be a Children’s Congress representative to advocate for funding and a cure. Personally, I have become heavily involved in the Board of Directors and enjoy helping shape how we bring more attention to this disease and ultimately help find a cure.
This year, we worked with the board at Medina Country Club to become their charity partner for the August 21 Golf Tournament. Championing Breakthrough T1D through that process, and ultimately becoming the charity partner, has been a huge success and I look forward to sharing that day with many people from our Twin Cities community.
To learn more and register for the event, click here: https://medina-charity-classic.eventlify.com/
