Dreams, Dancing and Diabetes

As kids we all have dreams of what we want to be when we grow up. Some grow into other dreams, but there are some who just know that their dream is their calling. I know a beautiful young lady who has such a calling to dance. Her idea of being a dancer isn’t putting on a pink tutu, going to dance class once a week and waiting for her dream to happen. It is a dream that she is pursuing despite any obstacles and any odds against her.

Alicia was accepted into LaGuardia High School. You may know it as the school from “Fame.” She commutes by bus and subway from her Queens home into Manhattan, any mother’s nightmare. She is 14 and I can feel her mother’s fear and I give her tremendous credit for having enough faith in her daughter’s dream that she puts aside any worry she has over her young daughter’s commute.

You see, there’s another obstacle far bigger than her commute or the sheer number of young women competing for her dream. Alicia has Type 1 Diabetes, a disease with no cure. Alicia didn’t get this disease because she is overweight or because she leads a sedentary lifestyle. There was nothing she could have done to prevent getting this disease.

I have to admit that until I met Alicia, I didn’t know much about Diabetes.  It was something I didn’t think about at all and if I did, my assumption was that it was easily treated with a shot of insulin. I never realized that exercise could affect blood levels to the point of being dangerous. I never realized that Alicia’s mom has to wake her up during the night to prick her finger to make sure that her blood sugar levels have not sunk to a dangerous low leading to complications like coma and death.

I never realized that just by following her dream and dancing every day in school her body could become depleted in such a terrifying way that she could leave school and become completely and dangerously disoriented impairing her ability to function. Despite eating healthy snacks throughout the day to replenish her blood sugar it can still drop to a dangerous low affecting her ability to find her way home.

If that isn’t scary enough, think about Alicia’s 16 year old sister, Olivia, who recently watched as Alicia was sinking. They were alone and Alicia began to deteriorate right in front of Olivia’s eyes. Olivia desperately tried to get Alicia to sip some juice and bring up her levels. My heart breaks thinking about that poor girl in a panic over how to help her sister, how to bring her back from the brink of something very dangerous.

 Despite the hardships of having a disease that can be so unpredictable, Alicia dances away. She glides through the air as if she is being held up by angels. She can stand on her toes and dance into a split. She has an amazing grace that can only come from someone so determined to let no obstacle stand in her way.

There are so many horrible diseases and every month seems to be a month of awareness for something terrible. November is American Diabetes Awareness Month but Alicia doesn’t only have diabetes in November. Her and millions of other people struggle with all of the different ways diabetes threatens their existence every single day of the year, not just in November.

Two great organizations were brought to my attention by another friend who has a child with Type 1 Diabetes, The Diabetes Research Institute and the Children  with Diabetes Foundation, both working to find a cure.   In my ignorance I hought that all that was needed was a shot of insulin but as I discovered, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Becoming a dancer professionally is a long and difficult road even with all of Alicia’s talent. She has a supportive family and was accepted into one of the finest schools for performing arts. There will be competition and obstacles. For now though, Alicia's biggest obstacle is Type 1 Diabetes.