{"id":24680,"date":"2019-09-12T17:17:26","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T21:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24680"},"modified":"2019-09-20T17:46:33","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T21:46:33","slug":"local-hockey-player-presses-leaders-for-diabetes-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/local-hockey-player-presses-leaders-for-diabetes-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Local hockey player presses leaders for diabetes support"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\nBrock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she laces up her skates to hit the ice\nwith the Panthers, 12-year-old Teagan Hulse is in the zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A passionate athlete, who also counts\nvolleyball, basketball, soccer and archery among her hobbies, she knows what\nshe has to do when she glides out there with her teammates, but she\u2019s also all\ntoo conscious of what she has to do off the ice to maintain her stamina and\nfocus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teagan doesn\u2019t quite remember all the\ndetails of being diagnosed with Type One diabetes while on vacation at the age\nof five, but the big things stick with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She remembers being out mini-golfing with\nher parents, feeling thirsty and needing to use the bathroom more than usual.\nShe remembers feeling not like herself. She also remembers finding herself\nshortly thereafter in the back of an ambulance on the way to the hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she and her parents got a handle on\ndiabetes, something they were told would be part of their new normal as a\nfamily, they also got a handle on how to be advocates for both Teagan and the\ncountless others living with the disease around the world and particularly at\nhome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite her age, Teagan is a passionate\nadvocate for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and brought her\nmessage to the Aurora Public Library last week where she pressed local leaders,\nincluding Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill MP Leona Alleslev, Mayor Tom Mrakas,\nand Newmarket Mayor John Taylor for their support in the JDRF\u2019s Access for All\ncampaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The JDRF\u2019s Access for All Campaign is a\npush for affordable and accessible coverage for everyone living with Type One\ndiabetes and, in particular, fighting for coverage of new technologies designed\nto help individuals living with the disease monitor their blood sugars,\nincluding Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGM), which, as the name suggests,\nmaintains a continual read of blood sugars and alerts the user if there is an\nissue, and Flash Glucose Monitors (FGM), which allows the user to get quick\nreadings from a small sensor implanted in the arm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The aim of the campaign, according to the\nfoundation, is to \u201creduce out of pocket costs for these technologies and make\nthem affordable for Canadians with Type One\u201d and, in the process, help relieve\nsome of the strain \u2013 and public money spent \u2013 on the healthcare system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I got back [from that trip] I was\nonly in Kindergarten, so I had a nurse come and check on me two times a day,\u201d\nTeagan shared with local leaders and residents. \u201cSince I was diagnosed so\nyoung, I couldn\u2019t do my finger puncture injections by myself and had to have\nhelp, but my nurse helped me to do my first finger poke and injection by\nmyself. Even though I have Type One, I am still very active, I play rep hockey,\nschool volleyball, basketball and sometimes soccer. I play spring floor hockey,\nlove skiing and waterskiing, swimming\u2026 and at diabetes camp I have learned\narchery and how to mountain bike. Like every 12-year-old, I love to go out with\nmy friends but with Type One, it is hard sometimes to do these things. When my\nsugars go too high or low, it can arise very severe consequences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDiabetes is with me 24\/7, 365. It doesn\u2019t\nstop when I sleep, it doesn\u2019t take a break when I go on vacation; it is always\nthere, like an uninvited guest who never leaves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, Teagan says living with a CGM has\nhelped she and her family better handle this uninvited guest and everything\nthat comes with it, including affording her a greater level of privacy when\ndealing with some societal attitudes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile I didn\u2019t mind lifting my shirt up\nto inject insulin in my belly before I ate when I was little,\u201d she recalled,\n\u201cit sometimes bothered other people. I got lots of weird looks and someone even\nasked my mom to take me to the bathroom and inject instead of staying at our\ntable at our restaurant. Isn\u2019t that just ridiculous?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CGM, she added, \u201chas saved my life on\nmore than one occasion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teagan was joined at the podium by Dr.\nNancy Tout, Head of Research & Development for Syngenta Canada. Dr. Tout is\nnot only a researcher into treatments for people living with diabetes, but also\nmother to a son, Alex, who was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the start of this month, Dr. Tout\u2019s\nson, now 19, went off to post-secondary education, a nerve-racking milestone\nfor any family, but many of her worries have been tempered, she said, knowing\nthat her son\u2019s blood glucose levels are being closely monitored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPlaying the role of his pancreas has been\nmy most challenging role I have ever had to take on, beyond any of the science\nI have taken,\u201d she said, noting the help she had to provide her son early on\nwith his insulin injections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Governments stepping in to provide\ncoverage for CGMs and FGMs is an essential step forward, she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is really the next step \u2013 and it is\nnot even the next step; we\u2019re a step behind,\u201d she said. \u201cThis technology has\nbeen available and it has the ability to really advance how people manage their\nType One diabetes. Better control, better outcomes, reduced hospital visits,\nand more data is just better to make better decisions and government\nreimbursement is key to all this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel pretty blessed and lucky to have a\ngreat job, as does my husband. We have coverage, we have access to all the\ntechnology we can for Alex to have better outcomes, and I would offer up that\nthe future of this technology is to be able to take it to the next step and\nthese technologies are going to be working together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and\nto learn more about their #AccessForAll campaign, visit jdrf.ca.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir As she laces up her skates to hit the ice with the Panthers, 12-year-old Teagan Hulse is in the zone. A passionate athlete, who also counts volleyball, basketball, soccer and archery among her hobbies, she knows what she has to do when she glides out there with her teammates, but she\u2019s also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/2019-09-12-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6q4","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-17 03:45:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}