By Makaila Heifner
Guest Columnist
My name is Makaila Heifner, I am 16 years old and I will be entering my junior year at Tahoma High School in September. At 16 months old I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Fifteen years later, I journeyed to Congress to ask our state’s senators and representatives to support Type 1 diabetes research.
Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease that makes a person’s pancreas stop producing insulin – insulin is a hormone that converts food into energy. T1D is a serious and life threatening disease that can lead to severe complications and is associated with an estimated loss of life-expectancy of up to 13 years. Furthermore, the disease does not discriminate. It affects all ages, races and people. Its onset has nothing to do with diet or lifestyle. There is nothing you can do to prevent T1D, and at present nothing you can do to get rid of it.
Type 1 diabetes is a hard disease to live with. This is one of the reasons I was so excited for the opportunity to talk to our nation’s leaders and explain the importance of research through JDRF’s (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) Children’s Congress.
Children’s Congress meet every two years with new delegates each time. I applied to the Children’s Congress in November and anxiously awaited to see if I was selected out of 1,700 other applicants. In late February, I was notified that I was accepted for this years Children’s Congress. This year was compromised of 167 delegates across the United States as well as six international delegates. We all went to DC with one dream: to cure Type 1 diabetes.
The first two days of Children’s Congress were spent getting to know the other delegates and preparing for our time on the Capitol Hill. On the third day, after an early breakfast, all the delegates plus their parents loaded into buses and began the day. That morning I met with Sen. Patty Murray, Rep. David Reichert and Sen. Maria Cantwell. The meeting went extremely well and we were met with positive reactions from our leaders as well as their staff.
One of the goals in our meetings was to encourage our senators and representatives to support the Medicare CGM Access Act of 201. This bill will allow seniors on Medicare the ability to be covered by insurance for the use of a constant glucose monitor, or CGM. A CGM is a device that constantly tracks a person’s blood sugar and is proved to help people have better control over their diabetes. Since Children’s Congress, the CGM Access Act has already gained nearly 15 new cosponsors.
Although Children’s Congress may be over, our fight to cure Type 1 diabetes most certainly is not. We will continue to fight for research, innovations and ultimately a cure. The day we stop fighting is the day that Type 1 becomes Type NONE.
