Amaya's Personal Page

Amaya Elyce Tyne was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes on May 4th, 2011.  A year prior, a friend of the family, had been diagnosed and we recognized Amaya had many of the same symptoms.  When she looked up at me in the emergency room with her beautiful blue eyes and asked me if she had diabetes, it took everything I had to hide the tears, put a smile on my face and say, "yes, but it will be ok!". 

Type 1 Diabetes is not from eating too much sugar and cannot be prevented.  It is a lifelong illness and there currently is no cure.   It is considered an autoimmune disease which attacks the pancreas and insulin is no longer made by the body.   Insulin is a hormone that is needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into energy needed for daily life.  5% of people with diabetes have this form of the disease and is the 6th leading cause of death in the United States.

Since she has been diagnosed, Amaya has had her fingers pricked over 5,475 times to test her blood sugar levels.  Amaya averages 8 to 10 finger pricks to test blood sugar levels along with an insulin pump she wears 24 hours a day that administers her insulin.  This all comes with a lot of work and formulating every single day.

Every minute of Amaya?s life is planned.  Every carbohydrate is counted.  Exercise and normal activity is monitored.  When Amaya wakes up in the morning the first thing she does is test her blood sugar, then she picks out what she wants for breakfast. We measure her breakfast and then have to figure out the carbohydrates for the portions she consumes.  When she is done eating we have to look at what she didn't eat and figure out how much more insulin she should take.  If her food intake is calculated incorrectly too much insulin could be administered and she could experience hypoglycemia which could result in a seizure, coma, or death.  We do this process for every meal, every snack, and every drink that contains carbohydrates.  In the last year and a half we have come a long way but as parents getting up at 2:00 A.M. every morning to check her blood sugar is rough, and everything has changed for all of us.  Every morning the first thing I think of is hoping Amaya is ok that morning.

When Amaya is in school she has to test every two hours, before lunch and anytime she feels as if she has low blood sugar.  If she is low, she has to have a snack and test in 20 minutes.  If she is a good number she may go back to class but if her blood sugar levels are low she has to repeat this process until she is in a safe range.  Some low blood sugar, hypoglycemia, symptoms are:  Anxiety, sweating, weakness, nausea, stomach ache, shakiness, and hunger.  We all know what it's like to feel like this.  Imagine what it must feel like to go through this every day.  We have a wonderful support system at her school and without them we wouldn't be doing as well as we do during the school week.

Our love alone isn't enough to find a cure for Amaya or anyone with Type 1 Diabetes.  We are doing all we can to help her take care of herself and avoid a potential kidney transplant.  10 years could be taken off of her life if there isn?t a cure found.  The closer we get to finding a cure, the more support and funds are needed to get us to that final stage.  Please join us on February 23rd, 2013, by donating, walking or doing both with us and asking a few of your friends or family to support you to help raise money for research.  Please consider donating to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (payable to JDRF)-any amount helps.  Maybe your donation will be the one that helps find the cure for Amaya.  After all she is our number 1, what if your number 1 had diabetes?

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