Jenna's Journey

I spoke to my niece this morning. She is preparing a speech to present to her class and has decided to speak about diabetes. I answered a few of her questions but found myself delivering somewhat of an impromptu speech to her over the phone. I think I view this as an opportunity to educate some young minds and dispel some myths and misconceptions regarding type 1 diabetes. I may have rambled a little. But she listened, took notes and followed up my answers to her questions with still more excellent questions.

I offered her the use of a video I put together about one year ago. It's a video that had been rattling around in my head since not long after Jenna's diagnosis.

For some strange reason, amid the emotional anguish and uncertainty on that fateful day of Jenna's diagnosis, it occurred to me to take my camera with me to the hospital when we took Jenna in. To this day I'm not entirely sure why or how I thought to do this given the situation. But I'm so glad I did. It enabled me to document in pictures Jenna's initial days as a person with type 1 diabetes. I decided to attempt to compose a video with those photos, mixed with a few others I had on my hard drive to mark 'before and 'after' diagnosis. I just needed the perfect song.

Then one day, as I was loading the kids in the car to take my oldest daughter to school, I popped in a Cd. It was the sound track to the movie "Into The Wild". The first song I skipped to was "Rise". The lyrics went straight to my core and made me say out loud, that's the song.

I'm not certain if my niece will be able to use the video but I thought I'd provide her with as much information as possible to cover both the physical and emotional aspects of this disease.

I hope she knows how very proud I am that she chose diabetes for her speech topic. I know she will deliver a beautiful speech. I know she will do us all proud!