A Mother's Perspective: Polishing Off Juvenile Diabetes

Support for a Cure

After having diabetes in her home for 25 years, Silpada Designs Representative Marcia McChesney still comes to tears when she talks about it. Type 1 diabetes, the life-consuming terror that invaded her home when her oldest daughter was three years old, has become Marcia's number-one cause. Of Marcia's three daughters, Lauren (28), Lisa (26) and Karen (20), both Lauren and Karen have type 1 diabetes, and although they're adults, the disease hasn't left Marcia's life. As a parent, Marcia said, "all you do is worry about your children."

Unlike other illnesses and ailments, diabetes is a disguised disease. "You'd never know they have diabetes to just look at them," Marcia said. People used to refer to the three girls as Charlie's Angels. They were honor students and grew up participating in many activities. On the outside, the McChesney's are a normal family. But, Marcia recalls many situations that felt far from normal. She remembers Christmas mornings when the girls were young and anxious to go downstairs to enjoy the presents and family festivities, but Marcia had to make them wait. "Juice and blood tests came first," Marcia said, "Christmas had to wait." Marcia's memory then revisits prom night when she packed Lauren's small sequin purse with sugar tablets instead of lipstick and found her daughter standing, frozen at the top of the stairs saying, "Mom I can't move. I can't go." Marcia stayed by her daughter's side, waiting out her diabetic symptoms and pumping her full of juice while her date waited downstairs.

As the memories of living every day with diabetes flood her mind, Marcia cries for her daughters. She knows their health is now their responsibility, and they're the ones who have to think all day long, every day, possibly for the rest of their lives, about diabetes and its devastating effects on their bodies. But, as a mother, Marcia refuses to believe it always has to be this way. For this, she continues to search for answers to make her daughters' lives simpler.

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation has been Marcia's charity of choice for decades. "All of my extra income goes to JDRF," Marcia said. She and her family and friends also support the cause by participating in the JDRF Walks and Marcia hasn't missed for 20 years. Marcia's support goes solely to JDRF because its number one goal is to find a cure for diabetes. There are other organizations that support people with diabetes, but, Marcia said, "After you live with it for so long, you don't want support, you want a cure."