Charlie's Angels – 2006 Walk to Cure Diabetes

Dear friends and family,

We hope you have all had a great summer. As it will be our tradition every fall until a cure is found, we are again rallying the troops to raise funds for juvenile diabetes research on behalf of our son Charlie.

Charlie, age 4, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was just 1. Charlie will never remember a time when he wasn't having his fingers pricked a minimum of 12 times a day to test his blood sugar and enduring four painful injections of insulin each day. We estimate that in his short four and a half years of life, he has had more than 12,000 finger pricks and about 3,500 needle injections. On the outside, Charlie has the appearance of a normal, healthy, mischievous 4-year-old boy, content in smashing cars, squishing bugs and embodying Luke Skywalker. But inside, his body is waging a war 24 hours a day, every single day. Diabetes is unpredictable, often defies logic and is incredibly hard to control. The insulin we give him is not a cure, it keeps him alive. He will be dependent on insulin for the rest of his life. We will do everything in our power to help Charlie avoid the heart and kidney disease, blindness, amputation and early death that is a reality for many with juvenile diabetes.

Without warning, Charlie can drop to the floor unconscious, suffering severe hypoglycemia. Unfortunately, this happened to him this past year while on line at the supermarket. If not for Susanne's quick action (injecting pure sugar into his blood stream) and the kindness of strangers, Charlie's health could have been in serious jeopardy. Managing his disease is a tremendous challenge and he must adhere to a very strict diet. Every cracker must be counted, every bite of banana weighed, every ounce of milk calculated. This means ignoring the ice cream man when he rings his bell, trading in his Halloween bounty for a toy and asking our daughter to sneak her chocolaty treats away to another room and chew discreetly, so that Charlie doesn't see her. With flashlight in hand, we even prick Charlie's calloused fingertips in the middle of the night while he sleeps to make sure that his blood sugar is not dangerously high or low. It is an awful, awful disease. We need a cure.

To work toward this end, our team, Charlie's Angels, will participate in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's (JDRF) Walk to Cure Diabetes on Sunday, October 29 at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

We know there are a lot of worthy causes out there. God only knows a lot of people need a lot of help in this world, but if you're inspired to help Charlie and millions of others like him beat this thing, you can go to http://walk.jdrf.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=extranet.personalpage&confirmid=86400966 and donate what you can. No amount is too small and every cent is appreciated more than you know. We're grateful for any donation you should choose to make, and if you can't make a donation because times are tough, well, that's fine too. We appreciate any support you can offer.

Thank you for helping our family team reach our goal of raising $10,000 this year. We are truly grateful for your support in our efforts to wipe diabetes out of existence.


Regards,

Carey and Susanne