StemCell Therapy

For the last five years, our grandson, Tyler Kane Ochs (TKO), along with his family and friends, have participated in the annual Step Out Walk to Stop Diabetes that is held each spring at Keeneland Race Track in Lexington. It is a big event that draws over 2,000 participants from central and eastern Kentucky to join the battle to fight and call attention to this terrible, always debilitating, and far-to-frequently cause of death.

This year the walk, as well as a 5K race, will take place on the morning of June 3 from 8:30 until its over. Anyone and everyone is welcome to join. You can register at the site that morning but you need to be there at 8:30, no later than 9, if you want to enter the race on trails through Keenelands lush woods.

Long-term readers of Points East already know that I drum up cash sponsorship for our team from you around this time every spring. If youre a new reader, welcome aboard.

Diabetes is the seventh, most-listed, on death certificates, cause of death in our country. However, it is most likely the root cause of a host of other killers such as heart disease, strokes, kidney failure, liver disease, blood poisoning and hemorrhages, to name a few, that are listed as the cause of death without mentioning diabetes.

For example, even though neither of them have done me in so far, I have had two strokes that the doctors tell me were probably related to my diabetes. The jury is still out on whether my intimate association with Mr. Parkinson was brought on by erratic blood sugar imbalances. The point is, that if either of the strokes had proven to be fatal, my diabetes would not have been listed as a cause of death even though it would, most likely, have been the root cause. Thanks to diabetes, Ive undergone five eye surgeries since 2015 and I am already in need of another round. Diabetes is one of, if not the most absolute, leading causes of blindness and is, by far, the leading cause of lower extremity amputations among adults. I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture.

The truth of the matter is that, other than visual impairment, I am not much bothered with the disease on a daily basis as long as I take my metformin, orally, twice a day, try to eat responsibly and get as much exercise as possible.

Our adult son, Christopher, is not so lucky. He has to have two daily injections of insulin. Chris has had so many life-threatening diabetes episodes that we have lost count. Hes had two already this year that involved Loretta and me uttering terrorized prayers that the ambulance get here fast enough to save his life. So, comparing what I endure, diabetes-wise, to what Chris and Tyler put up with is sorta like comparing a bee sting to a rattlesnake bite.

Our 8-year- old Grandson, Tyler, has to wear an insulin pump, and he has to monitor every bite of food or drink, other than water, that he ingests. Tyler can and does count every carbohydrate that goes into his mouth and does up to half a dozen blood tests every day. The insulin pump is strapped to his lower abdomen and attached to a needle injected into his belly and he has to wear it 24-7. The needle location has to be changed every three days. While he has not yet mastered the science of changing the needle by himself, he has been doing his own blood tests and carb counts since he was age three. Tyler was already a math whiz, two years before he started kindergarten.

The pump is far less painful than having three or more insulin shots every day and the dosage regulation is also much more precise. But the thing that most amazes me is that TKO does not allow the contraption or the disease to slow him down or prevent him from doing anything he wants to do. I can tell you, for sure that his parents and grandparents cringe and hold their breath every time he slides into second base or home plate but our worry doesnt prevent him from doing so. Apparently, little league baseball players have a deep-seeded, inherent need to slide into bases, even when theres not the slightest chance that the fielders might try to throw them out. Tyler would rather play baseball than eat ice cream and thats a good thing because an ice cream cone could kill him.

Tyler would also be the first person to tell you that we dont participate in the Step Out Walk, hoping for some imminent miracle that would enable him to live without an insulin pump and such a severely restricted diet. And even though we dont totally rule out that remote possibility of a miracle cure, our focus is on kids, like TKO, who are not yet born and we firmly believe that that the American Diabetes Association will eventually provide medical science with the financial resources to fund the research and development to stop diabetes.

By helping sponsor Team TKO in the Step Out Walk-Run you can join our battle, or wed love to have you join us at Keeneland a couple hours after the sun comes up on June 3. There will be tons (literally) of free, healthy food and drinks and we usually have at least one diabetic professional athlete from the NFL or NBA make a speech and sign autographs. Convenient Parking is never a problem.

Ive lost track of the total number of my readers who have helped sponsor Team TKO and me over the last five years, but they number in the hundreds and your total contributions over those years is well over 15 thousand dollars.

If you would like to help sponsor us this year, the easiest way is to go online to stepout.diabetes.org and click on donate at the top of the page, then click on donate to a runner/walker and type in Ike Adams. That will take you to Team TKOs page. I will try to update our progress on a daily basis should you want to check the website to see how we are doing. But please do make sure that you go to the trouble of designating your pledge to me, otherwise we wont know you made it and you will not receive one of Tylers autographed photo thank you notes later this summer.

If you would rather make a paper contribution, simply mail a check made payable to American Diabetes Association, with Team TKO on the memo line. Send it to my home address and Tyler and I will turn it in on Step Out Day: Ike Adams, 249 Charlie Brown Road, Paint Lick, KY 40461.

Reach longtime Enterprise columnist Ike Adams at [emailprotected] or on Facebook or 249 Charlie Brown Road, Paint Lick, KY 40461.

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Read the original post:
Team TKO ready to fight diabetes again - The Harlan Daily Enterprise

This entry was posted on April 8, 2017 at 6:50 am and is filed under Diabetes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |