Submitted by admin on Thu, 2005-10-06 20:00. ::
TECUMSEH - With five students out of 376 at Tecumseh Acres Elementary School having juvenile diabetes, their parents and teachers thought it would be good to do something to educate their classmates about the disease and raise money for research.
That initiative led to the planning of a ”Walk for Diabetes" at the school on Oct. 14. Students and parents are asking the community for donations that will be sent to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Federation International.
Physical education teacher Sherry Lawson said the idea came from parents and teachers talking about the students with diabetes. Five is an unusually large number. Lawson had just received some information about diabetes before the school year started and spoke with first-grade teacher Kathy Smith and Sheri Tomalak, whose son Daniel, 9, has Type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile diabetes, to get the project started.
”I thought it was a very important thing for the other kids to understand that it was nothing (the students with diabetes) did wrong," Lawson said. ”It's a good community-building thing for the kids. It's a way they can help their friends."
The cause of juvenile diabetes is unknown. Heidi Grimsey, whose 9-year-old son Ben has diabetes, said research is being done to find out what it is that kills cells in the pancreas that create insulin. Insulin is a hormone that breaks down sugar.
Each of the students have different regimens for controlling their diabetes. Three need regular insulin shots while two are on insulin pumps, which provide a steady flow of insulin into their blood.
”I have to check my sugar before I eat anything," Daniel Tomalak said. That means using a device to poke his finger to draw blood to check with a blood-sugar meter. He said the finger pokes don't hurt.
”I tell them to explain to the other kids when they check their blood that they're checking to see how sweet or sour they are," Sheri Tomalak said.
Tecumseh Acres Principal Carl Lewandowski said the parents, teachers and school staff meet at the beginning of the school year to review their students' needs, blood-sugar highs and lows and what to do if a student has a diabetic emergency. He said the teachers have enough experience with diabetic students now that they can tell when a student needs a snack to balance his or her blood-sugar level.
The parents said finding out their children had diabetes was harder on them than on their kids, but there is ”a light at the end of the tunnel," Sheri Tomalak said. ”There's always a support group in the area."
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