Tucson News NowElite athletes visit Tucson children who have diabetes

Elite athletes visit Tucson children who have diabetes

Some elite athletes were visiting little patients at the University of Arizona Medical Center Diamond Children's Thursday.

They hoped to inspire children with diabetes to go for their dreams.

After all, the athletes did.

The message is for the children and for all of us.

Diabetes shouldn't get in the way of doing anything you want to do in your life.

Member of the "Elite Team of Team Type 1" are exceptional athletes who have type 1 diabetes.

Type 1 is diagnosed primarily in children and requires daily insulin treatment.

Team members are spreading the message that exercise helps them control their diabetes and that diabetes does not get in the way of their record-breaking performances.

They believe children, especially those who have been recently diagnosed, really need to hear that message.

They say they wish they had heard it when they were children, like Nevaeh, a young Tucson patient.

Bicyclist Andy Mead talked with Nevaeh.

"I really would've liked to hear that it's not scary. You know, it's not a big scary thing that I'm gonna have to never eat a candy bar ever again or something. Right? Did you think that when you were first diagnosed--that, oh, I'm never going to get to eat ice cream again?" Mead asked Nevaeh.

"Yeah," she answered.

Mead, and his teammate Mark Suprenant, were dispelling all sorts of myths.

"You know, they can do anything they want with their lives and diabetes doesn't have to slow you down as long as you control it and manage it," Suprenant said.

11 bicyclists of the elite amateur squad of "Team Type 1" were in town to compete in El Tour de Tucson on Saturday.

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