My Daughter is a Type-1 Diabetic

That's Emily at right, when she was about 4.
Sarah, her sister is at left.
Mom in the middle.

What can I say about Emily?  Well:  I love her.  We all do.

Emily has been a type-1 diabetic for six years, since she was just turning 15.  She was a scared teen when we headed for the hospital and her mother and I were more scared than she.  Now she's a camp counselor for the summer, working with handicapped children and a senior-to-be at Ohio State University.

Fittingly, she's studying nursing, a career that captured her interest when nurses at Cincinnati Children's Hospital helped her adjust to the realities of her new life as a diabetic.

What else can I tell you?  Emily doesn't complain.  I find that, as a crabby complainer myself, truly amazing. 

She's a fine student with an incredible work ethic and a runner, too, having completed half-marathons in Cincinnati and in Nashville this spring.  She's a music fan and recently attended Bonnaroo where she and her friends hung out part of the time with my friend Bill Skyllingstad and me, because Bill had us perfectly prepared for the intense heat.  (By the way:  the music was great.)  Emily is a Harry Potter fan, which is easy, a Bengals fan, which is harder, and a member of the Tri-Delt sorority.  Another reason I love her is that if she had her way, everyone who wanted to be in her sorority could be.


Emily at the music festival. 
Kelly Petersen, her good friend
and fellow nursing student at left.

That's what I like best about our youngest child.  She's kind to everyone.  She accepts people as they are and for what they are. 

She's going to be a heck of a nurse.

Anne, my wife and Emily's mom, and I hope to see a cure for diabetes in her lifetime.  Meanwhile, she'll just have to handle the shots and the needles with grace, poise and aplomb.

That's how she does it every day.


Emily ran cross-country
in high school.
It was scary one day
when she went low.



Sometimes Emily (left) looks sophisticated.

Other times she just likes to have fun.

If you would like to donate to help find a cure for type-1 diabetes please click HERE! 

(This single click takes you to my fund-raising page.  There, click again on "donate to this event."  Then click "Biking and Painting for Diabetes."