London Marathon to help cure Diabetes

Many of you that are familiar with the Barnard family will know that being one and being diabetic almost comes hand in hand.

Of the 5 children, 4 have type one diabetes. Growing up we had to deal with a varying degree of the illness. Josh (2nd oldest) was the first diagnosed at 18 months old, it was very difficult to work out what was wrong as diagnosis that young is very rare. From then Oliver (oldest) was diagnosed at 16, and with Lucianna (3rd oldest) diagnosed at 24 and Daniel (Youngest) diagnosed in his mid teens, I was soon the odd one out. After Luci was diagnosed we were asked if we would participate in some testing to see if they could isolate a gene that caused Type 1 diabetes, after years of waiting we found the funding had been cut much too our disappointment.

Somehow throughout my adolescence I was lucky enough to never develop diabetes, but seeing and dealing with the effects of it first hand, the midnight hypos with hallucinations to the exercise induced hypos, have made me determined to help do my part to not only help those dealing with diabetes but to find a cure.