KALISPELL – Lots of people have set out for Washington, D.C., to try to “fix” things.
Maybe a pair of Kalispell brothers, ages 8 and 5, will have better luck than most.
Taite and Trevor Hammer certainly seem to have the personalities for winning others over, judging by videos of each posted by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
The boys have been selected to represent Montana at the JDRF Children’s Congress in Washington on July 13-15. The Children’s Congress, held every two years since 1999, is designed to help U.S. senators and representatives understand what it’s like to live with the condition, and the importance of funding research on Type 1 diabetes.
In his video, 8-year-old Taite tells about a day at school where an older boy warned other students to steer clear of young Mr. Hammer.
“Stay away from him because you could get diabetes and die,” Taite remembers the older boy saying.
“I’m not contagious,” Taite says, breaking into a grin, “but my smile is.”
Trevor, the 5-year-old, says, “I can’t wait to get a cure – I just can’t wait.”
Taite was diagnosed when he was 1 1/2. Trevor says he was 3 when his diagnosis came.
“Trevor was raised around a pump and all that goes into caring for someone with T1D,” the boys’ mother, Shana Hammer, says. “When he was diagnosed, he thought it was cool to be like his brother.”
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The family works hard to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation – in 2013, they raised $11,000.
The foundation, in turn, says it funds the most promising research that may turn “Type One into Type None.”
Type 1 diabetes in an autoimmune disease in which a person’s pancreas stops producing insulin, a hormone necessary for people to get energy from food.
It strikes both children and adults, has nothing to do with diet or lifestyle, and there is nothing anyone can do to prevent it.
“Just to survive, people with T1D must frequently test their blood sugar and inject insulin, or continually infuse it with a pump, every day,” according to the foundation. “Taking insulin does not cure T1D, nor does it prevent the possibility of the disease’s devastating effects: kidney failure, blindness, nerve damage, heart attack, stroke and pregnancy complications.”
According to JDRF, another 30,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes every year, joining the 26 million who suffer from all types of diabetes. There was a 23 percent increase in the prevalence of Type 1 diabetes in people under the age of 20 from 2001 to 2009.
Participants in the Children’s Congress range in age from 4 to 17. When his schedule permits, they've even met with the president.
The idea was inspired by a youngster in Massachusetts, who one day asked his mother, “Why can’t kids go to Washington and tell their representatives about what it is like to have Type 1 diabetes and let them know that we want scientists to find a cure?”
It’s a message Taite and Trevor will hammer home next month.
