Dear family & friends,

In honor of our 4 yr old little girl, Annabella Marie Poterucha, our family will be taking part in JDRF's Walk to Cure Diabetes (team name Bella's Butterflies) in Omaha on August 7, 2010. We will be a few walkers along with one-half million other walkers across the country.

Annabella was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes on March 22, 2010.Her diagnosis of juvenile onset diabetes was a huge shock to our entire family. With this disease, Annabella requires multiple daily injections of insulin, numerous daily finger pokes to test her blood glucose, and meticulous monitoring of her daily food intake in efforts to keep her alive and well. Her daily insulin injections are not a cure...it's life support.

Most people know someone with diabetes, mostly Type 2 (90% of diabetes population has type 2, 10% happens to be type 1, which is more rare) is a completely different disease, with a totally different pathology. Type 2 is due to lifestyle and mostly obese, sedentary adults. These people are able to control their diabetes by: losing weight, diet, and taking oral medications. On the other hand, type 1 diabetes, which is an autoimmune disease, affects innocent, young (mostly children) people, whose T cells attack their beta cells that produce insulin within their pancreas. In other words, their body's defense mechanism recognizes their pancreas as foreign, and attacks it; which leads to the destruction of the beta (insulin)producing cells which allows normal metabolism and body/blood gas exchanges. Therefore, type 1 diabetics are completely dependent on insulin injections for the rest of their lives. Before the discovery of insulin by Banting & Best in 1921, prognosis was very poor, and these people often only survived for a few months after they were diagnosed.....less than a 100 yrs ago it was considered a terminal illness.

I'm amazed at how far the treatment for this illness as come, and yet, there is so much to be discovered in order to find a cure! Things are constantly advancing thanks to those that support this cause and to finally finding a cure for autoimmunie type1 diabetes! For the first time, scientists are predicting that we CAN expect to see a cure well within our lifetime!

Now, more than ever, you can make a crucial difference. Even joining us on our walking team, "Bella's Butterflies" would be very much appreciated! Together, we can make the cure a reality!

Thanks!
Dr & Mrs. Joseph & Amy Poterucha