The life-altering Helping kids with Type 1 Diabetes
Something incredible happened in 2013. John Lasseter, Pixar’s Co-founder ushered in his own experience of parenting a diabetic kid to the character of a movie that ended up being the highest-grossing animated film of all time. Yes, we are talking about Frozen. A situation, deeply sentimental and hugely worrisome for innumerable parents across globe, dealing with their kids tackling Type 1 diabetes at the tender age, shaped Lassester’s vision of the character Elsa.
As reported in the ABC special, The Story of Frozen: Making a Disney Animated Classic, Lasseter explained that Elsa was originally conceived as a villainous queen complete with blue skin, spiky hair, and the ability to freeze hearts. But over the course of production, Lasseter started seeing Elsa in a different light. Elsa’s frosty curse reminded Lasseter of his son Sam, diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 10. “This little guy was being poked with needle after needle after needle and he asked, ‘why me?’” said Lasseter. “And I thought of Sam as I was thinking of Elsa. She was born with this. Why is she a villain?”
Inspired, Lasseter asked songwriting team Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez to write a sympathetic song for Elsa about her isolation. The song Let it Go was born and the entire story was rewritten.
Isolation aside, kids diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes face various physiological repercussions. Excess urination/bedwetting, weight loss, damage to the eyes, kidneys, heart to mention a few. Common symptoms are dry mouth, nausea and vomiting, fatigue, blurred vision, frequent infections. Needless to say, these conditions are not easy to deal with, much less so when we are talking about kids, barely waiting for the world to unfold in front of them – a world full of life and adventures.
Such sentiments drove LifePlus, Inc to engage in rigorous research to come up with its wearable medical device – the Smart Watch. Albeit, it can’t cure the disease but it’s certainly making strides to make life easier.
A. It’s non-invasive, kid-friendly
B. It looks cool
C. It monitors insulin levels real-time
D. Its predictive analytics feature creates awareness, diagnose deviation
E. Mom & Dad, doctors and care-givers are now 1-click away
Singer, songwriter, and actor Nick Jonas, who has had type 1 diabetes since he was 13, talks about “ways to approach it to make it easier”. In his words, “best advice I can give is looking at diabetes in my experiences has always been about how simple I can make my life and how focused I am on not letting it rule my life. That sums up my mentality”.
Yes, that sums up our approach as well. Let kids rule. Not diabetes.