From sidelines to cycling
P.E.I. man making tip-to-tip trip to raise money for diabetes
Diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of four, Brooks Roche, now 24, is used to having his life dictated by the disease he lives with.
In 2019, a week into a master’s program in architecture, Roche had to decide whether to continue his education or take care of his health.
He dropped out.
“It’s a chronic disease that impacts every decision I have to make. There’s an element of how does this connect with my illness.”
But Roche was fortunate to have access to a continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) system, which will allow him to do something he has only dreamed of — biking across P.E.I.
In the first two weeks of September, Roche will bike from Tignish to Elmira in five legs to raise money as part of Diabetes Canada’s Lace Up to End Diabetes. To donate, to his efforts, go to crm2.diabetes.ca/goto/brooks.
It’s a far cry from his younger days. Until he got an insulin pump at the age of 10, he couldn’t even play soccer with his friends because it was too risky, he said.
“The decision to bike tip-to-tip comes back and it echoes the fact that at other points in my life I didn’t have the capacity to take on an athletic undertaking like that.”
LIVING WITH DIABETES
A CGM device — a small sensor, implanted in his arm, which, as the name suggests, takes continuous readings — can notify him if his blood sugars are rising or dropping too much.
It provides him more freedom by not having to constantly overanalyze every decision and how it will affect his blood sugars, he said.
“It’s the Cadillac of diabetes technology. It does a lot of my work for me and basically, it provides a level of safety that not a lot of people can access.”
That’s because CGM devices aren’t covered in P.E.I. — only Ontario, Quebec and the Yukon offer some funding — which Roche wants to see change, he said.
“If everyone can experience what I did at the individual scale, such a dramatic change in my quality of life, the implications of that are huge.”
It makes something as simple as sleeping, which most people take for granted, more attainable and can save lives, he said, citing a recent case in Ontario.
A young woman with Type 1 diabetes lost her job due to COVID-19 and with it her insurance. She couldn’t afford to keep her CGM and one night had a hypoglycemic event while she slept.
She died two weeks later, said Roche.
“You can point to that person, and I can tell you, she would be alive if she didn’t have to choose between whatever it was — rent, groceries or medically necessary treatment.”
GOVERNMENT PLANS
In June, the federal government passed legislation requiring it to develop a national strategy for diabetes.
It’s an exciting and overdue development, said Kimberley Hanson, executive director of federal affairs with Diabetes Canada.
“The reason why it’s important is because the World Health Organization recommends every country has one ... and the fact that Canada didn’t have one is, we believe, one of the big reasons Canada is among the worst OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries for the prevalence of diabetes and the cost of treating it.”
There was also a commitment in the federal budget toward developing that framework, she said.
“We think it’s going to prevent literally millions of cases of diabetes and its complications and save our health-care system billions of dollars, employers billions of dollars and improve quality of life of those affected by diabetes.”
P.E.I. has its own strategy for diabetes and allocated $1 million toward diabetes supports in its provincial budget earlier this year.
Though details of that funding haven’t been released, an email from Health P.E.I. said it will be used to increase funding for its insulin pump program and its diabetes drug program, which were announced in November.
Roche, who works for the public affairs and advocacy department of Diabetes Canada, organized efforts to advocate for that funding and hopes the money will go further in expanding accessibility, he said.
“Given the language and given the pressure that was applied to why that investment was so important, I’m hopeful and confident that it will be spent in the right places, and it will open up these programs so they’re accessible to all.”