By Lindsay Elliott

Being an emergency room nurse, I thought I knew exactly what type one diabetes was. I knew what an insulin pump was, I knew what DKA was and I knew what I needed to do for these patients.
But when my 2-year old daughter, Emery, started to drink more, sleep more and was constantly in the bathroom, it took me 3 days to finally realize something was wrong. By the third day when she woke up screaming for water at 5 am, I knew something was terribly wrong.

It was in that whirlwind of diagnosis, a trip to Yale with a blood sugar of 565, and realizing that our whole world was about to change, was when I realized I knew NOTHING about type one diabetes (T1D).

Emery handled it better than the rest of us. We didn’t have to stay long in the hospital as I was already trained on what needed to be done to medically care for her and she wasn’t in DKA, but I was not prepared for the ins and outs of living and caring for a child with T1D who was 100% dependent on me to keep her alive every day. Yes, I was now a nurse 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
I was desperately looking for a way to understand how to care for my child so that she still could enjoy being a child, and JDRF gave me piece of mind that I could do this. JDRF became my soul support and Joan Benz, in a matter of 10 minutes, helped me to feel as though I could do this.

Our first JDRF One Walk was in September, 2015. Emery was 3-years old and we made her Queen for the Day. Team Triple E (her name is Emery Elizabeth Elliott) was created and well, as all type ones will tell you, community and family support is the only way to keep our type one loved ones safe. Everyone came out to support us. Emery smiled for the entire day. She proudly wore her team shirt and loudly exclaimed the cheerleaders, with their high fives at every lap, was her favorite part of the day!

Since then, we have been to every One Walk for the five years that she’s had T1D and she will proudly tell you that at 7-years old, it’s her favorite day of the year. It is this day that she is congratulated for enduring all that T1D does to a person and for doing it with a smile and positive attitude. It’s also our day as a family to thank the people of JDRF who work so hard to find a cure for the ones we love. And it’s the day where as a nurse, I learn from all those with T1D who work so hard to stay healthy. It’s a day we will never miss. As it was recently said to me, T1D parents and people are the kindest people you never want to meet and so is the JDRF community. It’s up to us to stick together and support one another and it’s at the One Walk where we all truly feel the arms that surround us for those we love.