Testimony of Eric Bonness

Having diabetes isn't something you struggle with alone - it affects your whole family. If you have diabetes, it affects everything you do. If you also have a brother with diabetes, it affects everything-times two. Our family has twice as many blood glucose "kits", and twice as many insulin pumps-more than ten thousand dollars worth. We do twice as many blood sugar checks, and change catheters twice as often. We have twice as many blood sugar "highs and lows". We have twice the costs¾-economic, physical and emotional.

My name is Eric Bonness. I am eighteen years old and from Omaha, Nebraska. I was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes when I was ten, three years after doctors diagnosed my little brother, Alex, with diabetes. I didn't have to go to the doctor's office to be told I had diabetes. I found out one morning in my bedroom after I had been up all night going to the bathroom, and guzzling water. Just before dawn, I opened my eyes as my parents sat down on my bed holding my little brother's blood glucose meter. For three years I had seen the fear-and the tears-in the eyes of my little brother as he endured thousands of finger pokes and insulin shots. I knew I was about to get my first finger poke to test my blood sugar. I was terrified. I had always been afraid for Alex. Now, I was also afraid for me. The doctors said there was only a small chance I would ever get diabetes. Suddenly, statistics didn't matter any more.

My mom poked my finger. Then, my parents and I watched in silence as the seconds ticked down on the blood glucose meter to reveal my blood sugar level. The numbers seemed to explode off the screen at me-"495". I asked my mom if I had diabetes, but I already knew the answer.

Like any brother, Alex can be a real "pain". But he has always helped me with the "pain" of diabetes. When I was first diagnosed, Alex would get candy for me when I had a low blood sugar level. He also taught me how to give myself insulin shots to bring down high blood sugars. Now that we are older, we still help each other recover from insulin reactions. We give each other test strips when one of us runs out. We even borrow the other's insulin pump when ours stops working.

It's scary enough to have diabetes myself. But, it's even worse to watch my little brother suffer with diabetes. Alex sometimes has a low blood sugar and migraine headache at the same time. He becomes semi-conscious, incoherent and unable help himself. I watch my parents struggle as they try to raise his blood sugar before he slips into a coma. We are lucky my mom is a doctor. Other families would have to go to the hospital. My parents give Alex an emergency shot of glucagon to raise his blood sugar level. It's horrible to see diabetes make my brother so vulnerable. If diabetes is doing this to him now, even with the best available medical care, what is diabetes going to do to him in the future?

I am not going to wait to find out. I start college next year and I plan to study medicine. We have to find a cure-and soon. It's not going to kill my brother, and it's not going to kill me.

We need your help to keep our hope alive. Thank you.