We are back from the beach and though the unpleasant feelings that I spoke about the other day faded, they never really totally went away.  Sadly as the cloud lifted from me on about day three of our return to Virginia it settled over the beach and the sun became a sight not often seen....  Between the weather and sadness we never made it to the nature reserve where these photographs were taken at back in 2006just hours before Arden was diagnosed.

However we were able to make a new memory that I am hoping will go a long way toward making those images a distant and fading one.  On our last day the sun broke through for a moment so we stopped and visited a Lotus garden.  The garden was on our list of places to visit in 06’ but as you know that trip didn’t quite go as planned.  

Today, two years and ten thousand shots later Arden is not the sick little girl that you saw in those pictures above.  But please make no mistake, Arden is only not dead today because researchers, scientists and caring people made the conscious and selfless decision to keep her alive.  Prior to 1922, prior to the discovery of insulin therapy Arden would have died.  Her blood would have absorbed all of the sugar that it could hold and then her brain would have just shut off.   

Only because advancements like the invention of a personal blood glucose meter is Arden’s life not significantly impaired and tragically shortened today.  

Cutting edge research is being conducted now by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.  Their singular goal is to cure my daughter, to drive type I diabetes from her body, to give her back the hope that we all deserve.  

All you have to do is make the conscious and selfless decision to support that research so that it continues, so that it thrives and so that it succeeds as quickly as possible.  

Your advocacy could start right now by making a donation of any size to the JDRF.  All you have to do is click.  Five dollars.  Ten dollars.  A hundred.  No matter the amount, every cent you give is a step in the direction of hope and an act of pure kindness.  An act that you will surely treasure, an act that I can not repay but will spend a lifetime thanking you for.