Margaret Lum likes numbers and that is a very good thing for Breakthrough T1D Bay Area. She has been assisting in our office once a week for the past 13 years, handling all of our expense reports and checks requests. She does it because she has a knack for accounting but also because her daughter, Jessica, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (T1D) at age 11 in 1988.
When Margaret attended our chapter’s annual meeting in 1999, she filled out a volunteer form. We called her immediately and when she came back to the office she thought she would have an interview of sorts. But we put her straight to work that day! She recalls, “Back then, everything was done manually. There was a table full of boxes from the recent Walk. The boxes were filled with checks and cash to be administered.” She dug right in and has been reliably coming to our office ever since.
Margaret wants people to know that T1D is much more complex than it appears to an outsider. She says, “It is an insidious disease because we don’t look or act sick. People think it’s just a question of giving a shot. But it is much more involved than that.” She sends her daughter flowers every year on her diagnosis anniversary. But she’d rather not have to note this date. For Margaret, a cure would mean no more worrying about her daughter. She says, “Everyone with type 1 diabetes would have a worry-free life.”
