Thursday, July 02, 2009
A meeting with the president
Olivia Kiser joined 149 others with juvenile diabetes for a conference in Washington D.C.
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Olivia Kiser's fingers were so small that her parents had to prick her toes to test her blood sugar levels. She was 9 months old when she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
Today, 14-year-old Olivia has returned from meeting senators and President Obama in Washington, D.C., and advocating for the need to find a cure for a disease she has no memory of living without.
"They really don't know what it is like," Olivia said. "Sometimes I have to skip a test because my sugar is really high or super low, or I don't concentrate very well."
Olivia, a rising ninth-grader at Cave Spring High School, was selected to attend the 2009 Children's Congress on behalf of the Greater Blue Ridge Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. About 1,500 children applied to go to Washington, D.C., for last week's event, and the foundation selected 150 from across the United States.
"For the most part she liked being around other people that understood her struggles," said her mom, Julie Kiser, who traveled with Olivia.
"I felt like everybody else was like me, and I didn't feel alone," Olivia said.
The children were surprised to visit the White House and meet President Obama. They also met Jonas Brothers band member Nick Jonas, who testified at a U.S. Senate hearing as a person who suffers from type 1 diabetes. Boxing champion Sugar Ray Leonard also participated at the hearing on June 24.
The five Virginia delegates also visited Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., to talk about the importance of diabetes research funding and health care reform.
Olivia likes photography, writing and playing the harp and tennis. But the insulin pump she has to wear under her clothes constantly reminds her of her limitations. Normal activities most children take for granted, such as sleepovers and family trips, were a concern for the Kisers.
"It's been difficult," Julie Kiser said. "We're not normal. It's a puzzle every day."
At the Children's Congress, delegates shared stories to encourage lawmakers to renew the Special Diabetes Program in 2010 and prevent a cut in diabetes research funding. The program, created in 1997, has paid to develop technologies that help people with diabetes and to conduct studies to find a cure.
About 700,300 adults had diabetes in the state in 2007, according to the Virginia Department of Health. The foundation reports as many as 3 million people may have type 1 diabetes in the U.S.
"I do remain optimistic that there will indeed be a cure one day," Kiser said. "In the meantime, we will use the new technologies to keep our children as healthy as possible. ... I do think we are closer than ever."
