Winning the Lottery?

After talking with Nora, we have decided to apply for JDRF's Children's Congress 2013. It is held every other year and gives 100 T1D's, aged 4-17, the opportunity to have Congress put a face to T1D. You can read more about it here. There is a very lengthy application process that once you sit down to fill it out on line there is no saving it or coming back later to finish it up. You sit down and fill it out now. So I took a look at the application and wrote down the things that would take us the longest to answer. Namely, the essay that Nora will need to write!! Not to exceed three typed pages or 1,200 words. I'm a little hesitant about this. What will she say? Will she say it eloquently? Will she get her point across? Will her words get her accepted into Children's Congress?? I promise that I will sit back and let her write her essay...as much as I will want to write it for her...I'm NOT going to do it. There...I said it out loud, y'all are my witness! Her essay needs to answer the following questions.

1. Your personal story living with T1D.

2. Why a cure is important to you?

3. What does the Special Diabetes Act mean to you?

4. Why the US Congress should support diabetes research to help find a cure for T1D?

5. What have you done to promote awareness of T1D in your community?

Quite frankly, I know the answers. Or at least I think I do. However, she may surprise me. And I'm looking forward to hearing her answers. We are so busy dealing with the day to day that I want to hear HER take on it. I know mine. All of you, know mine. She's almost 12, she's been living with it for 7 years. It's time to hear her story. And as soon as she writes it and we send it off I'll blog it here.

I printed off the Special Diabetes Act so that she could read about it and write about it. I also printed off some facts for her to use. I've read how much diabetes costs the US economy annually, how many American's have diabetes, the estimated growth of new diagnosis, you have read them too. But there is one statistic that stopped me dead in my tracks.

1 in 3: the number of American children born in 2000 that are likely to develop diabetes during their lifetime. (source http://advocacy.jdrf.org)

My Nora was born in 2000.

She is the 1 in 3.

That. Is. Sobering.

I guess knowing it and seeing it are different. When you hear it, it goes in one ear and out the other. You hear it but maybe don't process it like you should. Then you see it. Black and white. Right there just STARING at you. The year your baby was born and she IS the statistic. SUCKS.

In my odd way of thinking, she's always been "lucky". At the church festivals with the peel off Bingo tabs, she wins. Nothing big maybe $25 max. But she wins. Then there are those door prizes at events. She wins. Without a doubt. She wins. Wait till she's legal to gamble...I'm taking that girl to Vegas, baby!!

Anyway...if your reading this, chances are you also know a "lucky" 1 in 3. As I'm sitting here, I'm wondering what the odds are that you have more than the 1 in 3, (since I have 2 now). Then I'm thinking all three of my kids have chronic illnesses so that should count for something, right? A lottery win would be nice. Too bad we don't play. Damn.

Maybe my "lucky" 1 in 3 will be selected to go to Children's Congress. Who knows. But I will count myself as lucky to know all of you and that we are in this together.

Now, to go buy me a lottery ticket!