Teen with juvenile diabetes raising money to find a cure
By: ADRIENNE A. AGUIRRE - Staff Writer | ∞
Westview High School student Jenny Vandevelde, left, talks to Adobe Hills Elementary School principal Cindy De Clercq while picking up donated cell phones she will recycle to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
DON BOOMER Staff Photographer
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RANCHO PENAQUITOS ---- Jenny Vandevelde, 17, doesn't have a problem telling people she has juvenile diabetes; she'll tell anyone who will listen. But one day, she says, she would like to tell people she "had" juvenile diabetes.
The Westview High School student is telling her story to raise money to help the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation find a cure for her disease, in which the body doesn't produce insulin needed to convert sugar and starches into energy for daily activities. Complications of diabetes can include blindness, amputations and early death.
Jenny needs to raise another $4,600 by May 6 so she and her father can participate in the foundation's "Ride to Cure Diabetes." The ride takes place May 4-7 and includes routes of 36, 62 and 105 miles through Death Valley. The Vandeveldes are doing the 36-mile ride.
She said her condition, also known as Type 1 diabetes, will make the bike ride harder, but she's happy to make the effort if it means diabetic children as young as a year old may someday have a life without insulin shots.
The teenager is collecting and recycling old cell phones and ink-jet cartridges to raise money, and is selling rubber wristbands for $5. Jenny has donation boxes in schools and businesses throughout the Poway Unified School District.
Of the 20.8 million people with diabetes in the United States, experts estimate that 6.2 million of them are unaware of it. When Jenny was diagnosed at age 15, she had been experiencing symptoms such as fatigue, extreme thirst and rapid weight loss. She thought the affects were due to an increase in her soccer playing until she lost 15 pounds in nine days.
The day she was diagnosed she learned how to give herself painful insulin injections three times a day. Most children hate needles, but Jenny says needles are her life, literally.
"Without insulin I would die," she said.
Today, Jenny uses an insulin pump, a computerized cell phone-size device that carries enough insulin through a thin tube into her abdomen to provide her with a continuous supply of insulin for several days. Jenny also pricks her finger several times a day to test her blood sugar levels and can push a button on the pump to increase her insulin level if necessary.
Every few days the tube's insertion site needs to be changed, and the sudden surge of insulin into her system can be a jolt more uncomfortable than an injection from a doctor.
"It's different because with a doctor you can look away," she said. "I have to watch it. The worst is the anxiety between the time you push it and it shoots it into you."
Jenny said she hopes that through her fundraising efforts and those of others, a cure for diabetes can be found so she can get her "childhood back." On that day, she said, she will lose the insulin pump and get back into her bikini.
"I'll go do a cannon ball in a pool without my (insulin pump) coming out," she said. "I'll play soccer and have all the energy I had before."
Contact staff writer Adrienne A. Aguirre at (760) 740-3526 or aaguirre@nctimes.com.
Locations to donate a cell phone or ink-jet cartridge:
Info: www.geocities.com/RunninOnInsulin.
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brittani wrote on Nov 10, 2007 4:55 PM:my boyfriend is a diabetic and he was calling me, every half hour last night crying... in pain.. telling me he felt sick and kept throwing up.. he was hysterical and i was worried but i'm only 15 i couldn't do anything at all and me, not having diabetes myself, couldnt truly understand the feeling but i knew without question that he wasn't okay..i kept telling him he needs to get someone to take him to the emergency room but he hates the hospital because everytime he's gone before they tell him he has something else wrong with him too.. at 2:30 in the morning he told me he was in the hospital.. i got ready at 7 and was there by 8:00 and didn't leave him until 4 o'clock when my mom got out of work. to see the IVs and his sunken eyes.. all the little wires, and pieces of tape, bracelettes.. i couldnt help but cry. to see someone i love, in a position like that, it kills me. i have been dating my boyfriend for 8 months and its been the best 8 months of my life. my grandfather also has diabetes, but he has type 2, not type one like my boyfriend. i have done research, and read more about diabetes since ive been with him, than i have with anything else. though i dont have diabetes myself, i am determined to raise money to help find a cure. i always tell him i would take the disease for him if could, but i know that's impossible. i want to know i made a difference, and i want to do whatever i can to help fight this, if we can all be in it together we can win. this was inspiring, and i hope there is a cure found very soon so that Jenny and all the other's diagnosed can finally feel comfort in their own skin.
Jazmin wrote on Apr 16, 2008 9:45 AM:i have diabetes type 1 and it is horrible living with it always testing your bloodsugar constantly and people telling you can't eat that[when you really can] or just always having someone over your shoulder to see if your bloodsugar is in the right range or ganing wait with all the insulin and trying to stay fit at the same time or wanting to try for sports with out having your blood sugar low or even always making sure you have a snack with you its hard and since i'm in a group home staff that work here that don't even know about diaetes want to act like they know "how i feel" or "they know what i go through" but i want to raise money i just don't know were i give the money. so i left you my email to give me more information
thank you
p.s
soon we'll live diabetes free
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