o What: Tour de Cure. Route distances: 5, 26, 43, 65 and 100 miles.
o When: Saturday. Ride start times begin at 6:30 a.m.
o Where: Hillsboro Stadium, 4450 N.W. 229th Ave., Hillsboro, Ore.
o Cost: $25 through Friday; $35 day of ride. Fundraising minimum of $200 required to ride.
o More information at the event’s website. Donations to Blake Bell’s team, Blake’s Biggest Fans, can be made through the website.
Blake Bell has pricked his finger with a needle roughly 18,000 times in the past five years.
That’s about 10 times per day, every day, since the Camas 11-year-old was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Blake and his family’s lives have centered around the disease since the July 2, 2009 diagnosis.
“It’s 24/7, 365,” said Blake’s dad, Brad Bell. “You go to sleep knowing what his blood sugar is and you wake up wondering what it is.”
o What: Tour de Cure. Route distances: 5, 26, 43, 65 and 100 miles.
o When: Saturday. Ride start times begin at 6:30 a.m.
o Where: Hillsboro Stadium, 4450 N.W. 229th Ave., Hillsboro, Ore.
o Cost: $25 through Friday; $35 day of ride. Fundraising minimum of $200 required to ride.
o More information at the event's website. Donations to Blake Bell's team, Blake's Biggest Fans, can be made through the website.
The Bell family — Blake, his dad, his mom, Dana, and his brother, Nate — was vacationing in Sunriver, Ore., when Blake began to appear sick. He was losing weight, though eating plenty. He was constantly thirsty and urinating more than usual.
Dana took Blake to an urgent care clinic. He was immediately sent to a hospital in Bend, Ore. Blake was hospitalized five days while the family learned to manage the disease their youngest son would live with the rest of his life.
“We knew nothing about the disease,” Brad said. “I thought it had something to do with sugar, but I didn’t know.”
Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases among children and adolescents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the U.S., about 151,000 people younger than 20 have diabetes, according to the CDC.
Diabetes is a disease affecting how one’s body uses blood glucose, or blood sugar. When a person eats, his or her pancreas secretes insulin into the bloodstream. The insulin helps sugar in the bloodstream to enter cells.
A person with diabetes has too much glucose in their blood. The reason behind the excess glucose distinguishes Type 1 from Type 2 diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes is when the body’s immune system destroys the beta cells in the pancreas, making the body incapable of producing insulin. So people with Type 1 diabetes must rely on insulin injections or an insulin pump.
Researchers don’t know exactly what causes Type 1 diabetes, but suspect it’s an autoimmune disease. Type 1 diabetes is not reversible and stays with the person for the rest of his or her life.
In contrast, Type 2 diabetes is the result of the body’s cells becoming insulin resistant, allowing sugar to remain in the bloodstream. Increasing obesity rates and sedentary lifestyles are thought to be contributing to the growing number of people with Type 2 diabetes, according to the CDC. Diet and exercise can help to slow or stop the progression of Type 2 diabetes.
For the first year after Blake’s diagnosis, Brad and Dana used insulin injections to keep Blake’s blood-sugar levels stable. But on Halloween in 2010, Blake had an insulin pump implanted.
The device is wireless, so while the pump — which delivers insulin directly into Blake’s bloodstream — remains on his body, Blake doesn’t have the iPod-sized monitor attached to him.
The goal is to keep Blake’s blood-sugar levels between 80 and 180. To do that, Blake must prick his finger throughout the day — when he wakes up, before eating meals, before physical activity and at bedtime — to check his levels and administer insulin as needed.
“Insulin is life support, it’s not a cure,” Brad said. “There is no cure.”
After Blake’s diagnosis, the family began looking for resources. They wanted to learn more about Type 1 diabetes, find other parents in their situation. That’s how they became familiar with the American Diabetes Association.
The association’s Oregon and Southwest Washington office sent educators out to Blake’s school and trained his teachers, principal and health room staff. The Safe at School program alleviated some of Brad and Dana’s fears about sending Blake to school with a disease they could barely manage.
Impressed by the work of the American Diabetes Association, the family participated in the association’s Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes that September and raised more than $3,000. They’ve stayed involved with the association ever since.
This weekend, Blake, Brad, Dana and Nate will take part in the annual Tour de Cure — a bike ride fundraiser to benefit the association — for the first time. They recruited friends and family members to join their team and have raised nearly $2,000.
Together, the members of team Blake’s Biggest Fans will ride 26 miles. And they’ll do it alongside hundreds of other people who have been diagnosed with diabetes and their families, friends and supporters.
“He needs to do it to not feel alone,” Brad said of Blake. “And we need to do it to show him we’re involved and he’s not doing this alone.”
