The Telus Walk to Cure Diabetes is the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation鈥檚 most popular annual fundraising event, uniting communities across the country to find cures and treatments for diabetes.
This year, the theme is Superheroes because each person we support with type 1 diabetes is truly a hero.
Type 1 diabetes means needles to inject insulin to keep these children alive, and finger pokes many times a day to make sure their blood sugar levels are not too high or too low. High blood sugar causes damage to internal organs, and low blood sugar can lead to insulin shock and death.
Living with diabetes requires over 1,400 needles a year (based on four injections a day), and over 2,000 finger pokes a year.
Canada has the sixth-highest incidence rate of children under 14 diagnosed with diabetes. Common misconceptions are that diabetes is caused from inactivity and unhealthy nutrition, but type 1 diabetes can result from a virus that will change a child鈥檚 life forever.
This year in addition to the walk, a 5K run has been added, which starts this Sunday at 9 a.m. from Simms Millennium Park in Courtenay. The walk will start at 10:30 and is being piped off with the Comox Valley Pipe Band.
Registration for the run is by donation and registrants for the run will be entered in a raffle draw to win prizes from Equilibrium Lifestyle Management, Extreme Runners, VI Fitness, Odlum Brown and other supporters in the valley. Come down and join the fun with music, food, bouncy castles, and kids events.
Get together your own team of superheroes and raise pledges to support a cure for diabetes. Visit www.jdrf.ca and pledge a participant or learn more.
鈥� Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
