Diabetes drives children to help others – Jackson Clarion Ledger

John Webb, Special to The Clarion-Ledger 8:02 p.m. CT April 15, 2017

Type 2 diabetes can wreak havoc on your health. While lifestyle changes can help keep diabetes under control, many patients require oral medications or insulin injections as forms of treatment, too. Watch the video for how diabetes affects your body. Time

Mary Fortune, executive vice president of the Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi, pictured here with Bailey, one of DFM's Diabetic Alert Dogs, has lived with the disease 50 years.(Photo: Special to The Clarion-Ledger)

To invert a popular adage, it can take a child to raise a village or, in this case, a child who grew up with diabetes and as an adult vividly recalls what it was like.

A self-described free spirit, Mary Fortune has trekked the world despite a particularly brittle case of type 1 diabetes, traveling the Pacific Coast Highway on the back of a motorcycle, even in the immediate aftermath of a low blood sugar episode, and riding the rails of Europe, where she remembers asking for food from a train window in Hamburg during another hypoglycemic moment (blood glucose monitoring was not available in those days).

But she had one limitation.

She was told that because of her condition she should never try to get pregnant. That was the conventional wisdom in those days.

Yet, as she marks her 50th anniversary with diabetes a demanding and often unforgiving life partner Fortune says she feels as if she has raised an enormous family of those from across the state who like her had to come to terms in their youth or childhood with multiple daily insulin injections, finger sticks, blood sugar highs and lows, rigorous attention to diet and exercise and the kind of health complications that can beset even the most conscientious.

Theyre all my children, hundreds who have grown up with diabetes, and Im still in touch with quite a few, said Fortune, executive vice president of the Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi. Ive followed their lives and careers, engagements, weddings, births, successes and failures, times of crisis and grief, and times of joy.

And making this Mississippi matriarch of diabetes particularly proud this week are those children and adults she has mentored over the years who will be participating in the Diabetes Foundations 14th Annual Ultimate Fashion Show and Champagne Luncheon from 11 a.m to 1 p.m. Thursday at the Country Club of Jackson.

Proceeds will go to support the foundations Camp Kandu for children with diabetes and their families. The need has never been greater, because new studies have shown the rates of children being diagnosed with both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes have increased dramatically, especially among racial and ethnic minorities.

Nationally between 2001 and 2009,the prevalence of Type 1 diabetes increased 21 percent among children up to age 19, according to astudy funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. The prevalence of Type 2 diabetes among those ages 10 to 19 rose 30 percent during the same period, the study, released in 2014, found.Type 1 diabetes is a chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin, the hormone needed to allow sugar into cells to produce energy. Type 2 diabetesoccurs when the body becomes resistant to insulin or doesn't make enough insulin.

We are up at Batson Childrens Hospital seeing newly diagnosed children far more than we used to be, Fortune said.

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Among those taking to the runway will be Charlie Mozingo, 41, the founder of Mozingo Clothiers in Fondren, who was introduced to Fortune after his diagnosis at the age of 10 and who in adulthood has been working with the foundation as a volunteer and board member.

Mozingo Clothiers is excited to be a part of this years fashion show, he said. We are dressing seven gentlemen in everything from custom clothing to some of our more casual attire. (As GQ might advise, Look for bold windowpanes in sport coats with lightweight materials that are both soft and comfortable, Mozingo said.)

Also taking part will be the foundations communications coordinator, Kaitlan Alford, 23, who was diagnosed with Type 1 at age 9 after spending two days in a coma.

My diagnosis was dramatic for everyone, really intense, and I saw how it affected my family, she said. We were all in a sense diagnosed. My mother saw me going through all this, the 2 a.m. blood sugar checks every night, but she knew I could handle it and take care of myself, which made me feel like I could do anything.

Kaitlan Alford, diagnosed as a child with Type 1 diabetes, was 14 when she walked the runway nine years ago at the Ultimate Fashion Show and Champagne Brunch in Jackson to raise money for the Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi's children's programs. Now an adult, she is the foundation's communications coordinator.(Photo: Special to The Clarion-Ledger)

Soft-spoken and demure, Alford had to fight back tears as she recalled how the disease has affected her mother, as well as the way Fortune reached out to her, first as a friend and mentor but then as the one who hired her after college.

I get emotional when I talk about it, Alford said. I dont just work here. Its not just us helping others. Mary helps me. We talk about things we both go through, trying to juggle the complex set of challenges that diabetes presents while at the same time trying to live a normal life.

Kaitlan Alford, 23, communications coordinator for the Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi, first walked the runway at the foundation's Ultimate Fashion Show and Champagne Brunch in Jackson. Alford, who has Type 1 diabetes, still participates in the event that raises money for the foundation's children's programs.(Photo: Special to The Clarion-Ledger)

At one of the foundations many statewide fund-raising walks, a child touched Alfords life in a way that she said still stands out in her mind.

My mom walked over to me and introduced me to this tiny, blond curlyhaired boy with blue eyes that could melt anyones heart, Alford said. He was 3 years old, and he had been diagnosed with Type 1 at 18 months."

She said that her eyes immediately filled with tears. Describing how I felt is nearly impossible, Alford said. I was hurting for him because I knew what he was going through, and I was empowered by him because he was 3 and dealing with challenges I didnt have to face until I was 9.

Ayden Wolken, 10, seen here with a bull at this year's Dixie National Rodeo Show, was diagnosed with diabetes when he was 18 months old.(Photo: Special to The Clarion-Ledger)

Alford said the boy, Ayden Wolken of Mendenhall, now 10 and competing on the soccer field and at livestock shows, inspired her to be even more courageous and determined while living with diabetes. Seeing him thriving now continues to inspire me, she said.

These are the kinds of moments that those at the Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi make possible because of their passion for not merely helping others, but for changing lives.

The Diabetes Foundation of Mississippis 14th Annual Ultimate Fashion Show and Champagne Luncheon will feature models of all ages in spring and summer fashions, giveaways and an array of raffle items, as well as a Champagne lunch and a drawing for the 2017 Patty Peck Honda Car 4 a Cure. All money raised by the foundation remains in Mississippi to be used to improve the quality of life of children and adults with diabetes.

Being honored will be the foundations 2017 Women of Excellence, Dr. Jane-Claire Boyd Williams of GI Associates and Dr. Beverly Hogan, president of Tougaloo College.

What: The Diabetes Foundation of Mississippis 14th Annual Ultimate Fashion Show and Champagne Luncheon

Where: The Country Club of Jackson

When:11 a.m.-1 p.m. April 20

Cost: $70 per ticket

For more information, call 601-957-7878 or visit msdiabetes.org (click on Events).

Type 1 diabetes, formerly known as juvenile or insulin-dependent diabetes, isa chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin, the hormone needed to allow sugar into cells to produce energy.

Type 2 diabetes, once call adult-onset diabetes, occurs when the body becomes resistant to insulin or doesn't make enough insulin.

Source: Mayo Clinic

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Diabetes drives children to help others - Jackson Clarion Ledger