Young girl lobbying in fight to cure, prevent Type 1 diabetes
Westside Weekly
West Kelowna’s Arielle Findlater is making a difference in the fight to cure and prevent Type 1 diabetes after travelling to Parliament Hill in Ottawa to lobby members of parliament and senators.
The 12-year old was among 28 young people selected from across Canada to take part in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Kids for a Cure Lobby Day at the end of October.
Findlater, granddaughter of Coun. Doug Findlater, met with parliamentarians and showed them her scrapbook which documents her diagnosis and her life with Type 1 diabetes to inform and put a face to the disease.
The group of young people had 90 meetings with more than 100 parliamentarians, including the Minister of Health and the Minister of National Revenue and a dozen senators.
The kids asked for support for the foundation’s recommendations, including amending the Income Tax Act to clarify that carbohydrate calculation is part of calculating insulin dosage making it an eligible activity for the Disability Tax Credit; a national diabetes registry for Type 1 diabetes patients; various types of insulin be included under National Pharmacare programs and new funding for research aimed at curing, preventing and treating the disease.
Findlater met with Cathy McLeod, Member of Parliament for Kamloops Thompson Caribou, Elizabeth May, M.P. for SaanichGulf Islands and leader of the Green Party of Canada; Dan Albas, M.P. for the Central Okanagan-Similkameen-Nicola; Sonia Sidhu, member for Brampton South and Senator Yonah Martin.
Findlater liked Albas the best because he was super friendly and the only one who took notes.
Arielle was seven years old when she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, an auto-immune disease in which the pancreas stops producing insulin, a hormone that allows people to get energy from food. There was no history of the disease in her family.
“It just came out of nowhere,” said Arielle’s father Dave, who accompanied his daughter to Ottawa.
“Everything’s different,” Arielle said about her life after being diagnosed. “Every day we have to carb count tons.”
The carbohydrate counting determines how much insulin Findlater needs.
Findlater’s scrapbook documents the weeks she spent in Kelowna General Hospital after she was diagnosed, her time at Diabetic camp where she could relax and have fun with other Type 1 kids as well as statistics including the more than 10,000 needles she used the first year she was diagnosed.