My son Matthew is 10 years old now, soon to be 11. At age 2, he was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. I’ve written before about that period, when Matthew was diagnosed, the nightmarish events leading up to our long hospital stay, and I’ve also written about life after diagnosis, the immediate changes to lifestyle and diet, how it effects a little boy and how his brothers and entire family are all brought along for the ride.
Today is a little different… I’d like you to imagine yourself being in a third world prison, wrongly imprisoned, a victim of evil, dirty captors who possess zero empathy, heartless and soulless… pitch black eyes of darkness. This prison has no floor, just dirt and dusty, beat up old gravel. A stone bed, a single torn blanket that has never been washed. Your shoes have been taken from you, bare foot you have been for as long back as you can remember… how many years have I been here… nine years you find out from counting your wall stick figures. Nine years of your life, wrongly imprisoned, eating yellow mashed mush and lukewarm water. Did I mention it’s hot here… really hot. Sweaty all day hot and you have no refreshing breeze, only stale air… just stickiness and stink… day after day… sticky. Stink. Cruelty. Heartlessness… despair.
Until one day, as Denis Lemieux would say, “And then you get free!” The cavalry finally arrives. In a single day, you go from terminal imprisonment inside that 8’ x 8’ jail cell to taking your first steps into the sunshine, arms stretched out as wide to your sides as you can reach, head tilted upwards to the heavens, deep breaths take in the infinite openness, piercingly loud cries of joy into the sky! Freedom! Total freedom, total relief! Never again will you feel the way you did. Never again will you feel the constraints or the walls close in like you’d known too well. It’s over for life, those feelings are gone forever! It’s a whole new world and you’re going to live it like with tremendous zest!
This. This is what you’re contributing to by supporting the 2021 Hockey Golf Gong Show! There are many wonderful places to send your charitable dollars and time, many are in need all over the world, no doubt. But there is something to be said about being to follow your dollars and see tangible, clinical results. I’ve given money, we all have… feel good about ourselves for a moment and where that money goes, nobody knows, we trust its being put to good use.
This is a something different. When I had lunch with Dr. Jose Oberholzer after our 2018 hockey/ golf outing, he laid down the timeline of his functional cure for this wicked disease. He said FDA approval by 2021, then to get big insurance on board, and finally by the year 2025, his hope was to be offering his cure to the masses. This year’s golf outing is Friday, August 6th, and guess what happens 12 days later.
Biological license for islet cell transplantation, FDA approval is expected August 18th, two thousand twenty fucking one! The Chicago Diabetes Project is positioning to help hundreds of thousands of children and adults, maybe more, I can’t fully comprehend the breadth of what is happening right here in Chicago. Remember this, “Dr. Jose, you’re from Switzerland, how come you chose Chicago?” “Well, if it was good enough for the atom bomb then it’s good enough to cure diabetes.
When I relate this back personally, my Matthew is 10 going on 11. Add just four years, that puts him at 15, 16 years old. You mean to tell me that Matthew can be cured before going off to college? The big nightmare of parents of T1D is college, a kid trying new things just after leaving his support system behind and being dependent on other “kids” to identify and sufficiently react to diabetic symptoms which could lead to death… I’ve long prayed for Matthew to be cured before the hurdle, and CDP is set to make that happen. I hope you understand how big this is. Yes, its that fucking big. This is HUGE! This is the kind of thing that goes down in history forever and “Oberholzer” becomes the answer to a trivia question… “Who cured diabetes?” Answer: “Dr. Jose Oberholzer, with help from the friends, family and supporters of the Hockey Golf and Gong Show!”
Friday, August 6th, 1p shotgun start at Tamarack in Naperville. We still need so much help to maximize this event. We need sponsors, that’s how the real money is made, please help us by sponsoring a hole or an event, and of course the big sponsorship, “The Holy Grail” is still available. We need donations for prizes and raffle items, please email me at dedison@toedragapparel.com. And we need more golfers, please register and if you don’t have a foursome, no sweat, I’ll match you with other cool people, I promise. Come on out guys. Let’s just get this done!
Thank you for taking the time to read my note,
Daniel Edison
773.343.3937
Hockey Dad, Coach, T1D Warrior & Wannabe Entrepreneur 