My Experience With Diabetes

I am not sure which was more shocking for me to hear: the fact that Tina had run away from home or the calmness of her foster mother's voice as she delivered the news. Tina was now at the Harlem Hospital Center, recovering from days of not taking any insulin. Watching her lie in the hospital bed, IV in arm, I wondered if our modest, student-run program was really fulfilling its mission of educating teens about healthy habits and proper diabetes care. Part of me wanted to remind her again that she should carry insulin with her at all times, but I knew that what she needed now more than ever was a reminder that we cared about her and that we wanted her to get well. Sure enough, we coaxed a smile out of her, which was all I needed to remind me …show more content…
Although we are now called TIDES (Type I Diabetes Education and Support), our goal of providing a safe environment where teens can learn about diabetes with their peers has persisted. Designing creative "lessons" each week, including trips to the supermarket and rounds of Diabetes Jeopardy, also taught me about carb counting and coping with hypoglycemia. Although we stuck to the basics of daily care, I felt that my ability to advise was limited by being neither a medical expert nor a diabetic. Instead, I focused on something I knew I could offer: my mentorship. In fact, some of my most vivid memories from TIDES are not from the program at all: taking Jimmy to Central Park's Winter Festival, watching a taekwondo tournament with Shatema, and visiting Tina at the hospital. The kids knew that I gave them advice they needed to hear, but what made them actually listen were our friendships. My willingness to connect with them and earn their trust is a quality that I believe is necessary in the field of …show more content…
As a volunteer intern in the Online Services department of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), I focused on collecting pertinent articles from the old children's website and presenting them in a kid-friendly manner on the redesigned JDRF Kids Online. As I helped rebuild a resource I had often used before, I was drawn to the hundreds of JDRF-supported abstracts posted online from around the world. What captivated me about Dr. Kevan Herold was not only that he was at the forefront of diabetes research right here at Columbia, but also that he had given his time to be interviewed for the "Role Models" section of Kids