At a year old Jonty was the picture of good health... Then in the next two months everything changed.
Diagnosis of type 1 diabetes was a hammer blow for the entire family and meant their lives would never be the same again.
Every day is now ruled by a balancing act of blood glucose levels, insulin and just the right amounts of carbohydrate. Yet constant and careful monitoring cannot safeguard against the devastating complications like reduced lifespan, blindness, heart disease and nerve damage type 1 diabetes can bring with it.
Controlling the condition is one thing but the hope of a cure is everything to Jonty and the thousands of families around the country living with type 1 diabetes. Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation exists to find that cure.
JDRF was founded by a small group of parents of children with type 1 diabetes who recognised that insulin injections are not the cure for this life threatening and lifelong condition.
Normally striking children, type 1 diabetes will stay with them for the rest of their lives. It is not caused by anything that the person with the condition, or their parents, did or did not do.
Affecting about 350,000 people in the UK, 25,000 of them children, type 1 diabetes is on the increase – rising by about 4% each year with a five-fold increase in those under 4 years of age in the last 20 years. In fact the South Coast has one of the highest cases of type 1 diabetes in the whole of the UK.
For almost 40 years JDRF has been fundamentally involved in the delivery of advances in diabetes research; seeking out, assessing and monitoring the best science to drive the breakthroughs that improve management of type 1 diabetes and will ultimately cure the condition.
"As the Commodore's charity we hope that support via this partnership will enable even more groundbreaking research to happen and bring us closer to finding the cure," said Nicole Gerrard, South Coast Regional Development Manager, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
"Join us in finding the cure."
