My Diabadass Sister

It's been a while since I got a haircut.

When I was younger, I always kept my hair buzz-cut.  It was short.  I mean REALLY short.  I knew it was time to get a haircut whenever I had to do anything to it when I woke up.

I don't remember why I started doing it, but somewhere around my freshman year of high school, I started growing my hair out.  And I liked it!  My hair grew out in beautiful blonde curls (of which I am INCREDIBLY proud!) and somehow having bigger hair made my head look smaller.  Ever since, it's been my identifier:  the thing that makes me unique.  Because of that, I've resisted getting it cut since then like a turkey resists going out on Thanksgiving, but in high school, I still always knew when to get it cut, because the coaches would tell me.

Then I graduated.

Ever since I graduated from high school, my hair has gotten out of control.  It's REALLY long right now, and if it were straight, it would be even longer.  When I pulled it straight just now, it reached to at least six inches below my shoulder . . . and that wasn't one of the longer locks.

Knowing when to get a haircut is more difficult now.  In the past, I've tended to get a haircut just before something big is about to happen.  I planned on getting a haircut just before camp at the start of the summer, but the one person that I trust to cut my hair right now was suffering from a hand injury.  I honestly can't remember when I got a haircut before that, so, needless to say, I haven't had one in a while.

That's about to change, because of this beautiful little girl:

But first, something completely different.

There is currently a disease raging across this nation.  This disease affects adults and children with no discrimination by age, weight, or lifestyle.  It appears suddenly and causes immediate dependence on multiple daily injections.  Right now, around 3 million Americans are plagued by this disease and roughly 15% of those are children.  EVERY YEAR this disease accounts for $14.9 billion in health care costs.

There is currently no known cause or cure.

Type 1 diabetes has hit pretty close to home for me ever since my baby sister was diagnosed with it her freshman year.  She has done her best since then to keep this news under wraps, hoping that people wouldn't treat her differently, but now that she's graduated from high school, she's decided that it's time for her story to be heard.

For some reason, and I reiterate that no one knows what that reason is, the bodies of people with type 1 diabetes don't produce any insulin.  This means that from her freshman year onward, Sarah gave herself at least six shots of insulin a day in addition to pricking her fingers countless times to check her blood sugar.  Yeah, be nice to diabetics.  They have to deal with enough pricks already.

But a few pricks just scratches the surface of what diabetes has meant for Sarah.

Being diagnosed with diabetes means an entire lifestyle change.   She must pay close attention to what she eats, when she eats it, the regularity of her exercise, how much sleep she gets, her stress level, and dozens of other factors that contribute to your body’s blood sugar levels.  The insulin pump she recently switched to using has reduced the number of shots every day, but since there is no known cure for type 1 diabetes, she will continue to deal with it her entire life.

Despite all of this, Sarah participated and excelled in basketball, tennis, softball, track, and cross country, was a section leader and state solo & ensemble qualifier in band, class president, student council member, was on multiple UIL academic teams, AND was valedictorian of her class.

She's pretty awesome.

So here's the deal.  On September 28th, the American Diabetes Association is sponsoring the Step Out Walk for Diabetes in our area and our family has put together a team.  When we started fundraising, we set a goal of $1000, and I REALLY want to see us at least reach that goal.  As of the time I'm writing this post, we have $414.  It's a start, but it's not quite there yet.

Sarah (along with several other people) has been telling me for a while now how badly I need a haircut.  Hopefully, she'll be getting her wish soon.

If our team can reach our goal of $1000 by the walk, I will not only get a haircut, I'll let her decide how it should be cut.

Whether you want to donate to the ADA and help them to, in my sister's words, "kick diabetes' butt," or whether you want to contribute to the "convince that weird kid with the unnecessarily long hair to get a haircut" fund, you can donate here:

http://main.diabetes.org/goto/Freitag

Help force me to get a haircut.

Help those people who "give vampires a sugar rush".

Help the ADA fight diabetes.