Hello, my name is Ashlyn, I live with Type I Diabetes. When I was just two years old, I weighed about 18 pounds, had very short brittle blond hair, a gray complexion, and I was thirsty all of the time. My family did not understand why I was so thirsty, so they reached out to my doctor. The doctor told my mommy a very sad story about my body. It was so sad because my mommy could not stop crying. He told her that my pancreas had died inside of me and that I can not live without it. He said to her that there was not surgery that could fix it and no cure. I felt very sad for my mommy, for she held me very tight, and repeated how much she loved me over and over again. I wanted her to feel better so I told her holding her face with my little hands saying “Mommy it is okay, it doesn’t even hurt”. She smiled at me and said “we will make it all better“.
I was taken to Children’s Hospital and given my first dose of insulin by a needle in my tummy. I was terrified. I screamed, cried, and shook all over. I did not want to get a shot but there was nothing I could do, they had to. My mommy told me over and over “it will be okay” and “ I am so sorry, baby”. Miraculously, she was right, the shot made me feel better. I gained 4 pounds over night, woke up with beautiful blonde ringlets of hair, and a nice pink glowing complexion.

Since that day of my diagnosis, I have had over 20,000 needles poked into me, I have to monitor my blood sugars 10 times a day by poking my fingers to get blood out of them, just so I do not get sick.
Every night I pray for a cure because I do not want to die, I do not want to have shots, I just want to be like all the other kids and not worry if I am going to be too low with a low blood sugar to where I can’t talk or too high with a high one and throw-up. It is so hard to have this, and be a kid.

Thank you to all who have contributed to research for finding a cure- one day we will all conquer this disease. Ashlyn’s Angels, Guardians of Hope.

Help me find a cure for Ashlyn.

 I will be participating in the Walk for a Cure on September 12, 2010 at 7am. Please go click this link http://walk.jdrf.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=extranet.personalpage&confirmid=87737541  and make a donation in my name, Amy Lilly. 

Please make a donation..for a wonderful research foundation and change a childs life