Stories of Hope

Kathleen Petrillo and her daughter, Lauren

Kathleen Petrillo

Daughter has Juvenile Diabetes

On July 24, 1986, my neck was broken as a result of a car accident. I was told that spinal fusion of my first two vertebrae was my only chance for a cure and that there was a risk of death or paralysis if the surgery was not successful. I chose to undergo two surgeries and six months with a halo brace screwed into my skull to cure my condition and end the uncertainty.

During my recovery, I experienced a chance meeting with an elderly woman who commented on how lucky I was to have the halo. She told me how she had also broken her neck in a car accident in the 1920s, and that she was confined to a bed in traction until a surgical procedure was devised in the 1940s to fuse her entire cervical spine. How fortunate I was to be living at a time when so many of the miracles of modern science were available to me. I was truly given a second chance to live.

On July 24, 2003, exactly 17 years after getting that second chance to live, my four year- old daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. She is fortunate to have an insulin pump, which gives her insulin every three minutes of every day until a cure is found. We test her blood 10 times a day and dose her for every meal, snack or drink that she has. With these efforts, we hope to delay the onset of the damage suffered by so many living with diabetes - heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and loss of vision, to name a few. We also test her in the middle of each night so that she does not suffer severe hypoglycemia, which kills several children with diabetes each year.

Until the discovery of insulin in the 1920s, Type 1 diabetes meant certain death within weeks of diagnosis. Without that amazing medical discovery and a society willing to accept new medical advancements, I would not have my daughter today. With constant vigilance, we will keep her well until her next medical miracle comes along. But children with terminal conditions may not live to see their cure if vital medical research does not progress.

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