Being the wonderful mom that I am, and after spending 2 1/2 weeks with all my kids home from school, I decided that on the last day, we needed to do something really great together. ( Or maybe, I was tired of them all, and thought I would do something to make them glad to be going back to school and getting away from me, you decide.)

Travis has Type 1 Diabetes. Monday was one of his quarterly endo appts. Since I had to take all the kids with us, I decided to enroll everyone into the TrialNet Diabetes Study. Basically, this study takes blood from close relatives of those with diabetes and tests it for any autoantibodies, so see the likelihood of those tested developing diabetes within a certain time frame. Those who have these autoantibodies can then be entered into more studies, most to learn more about how the disease progresses, and possibly some to study new treatments or ways to delay the onset.

Mindy was not too happy to have her blood drawn, but was very willing for such a good cause. The nurse was very impressed by her attitude. She volunteered to go first, just to get it over with.

Sandra, on the other hand, was very excited to have blood drawn. She is our very brave girl when it comes to needles. I think this comes from the series of rabies shots she had to have. She had to have blood drawn before, and after the last time, she kept asking when she could do it again. Her big dilemma, was over whether or not she wanted to watch the needle being poked into her skin.

Cammie was also very willing. She has been asking for the last month when she would get to go give blood. She was also brave enough to watch the needle going in. Here she is proudly viewing the blood she gave.

Kyle was the hardest. He kept telling me there was no way he would let them take his blood. He has had blood drawn before, so I couldn't understand the big deal. I told him he didn't have a choice, I am his mom, and I was signing him up, but it turns out, that all kids over the age of seven, do have a choice, and have to sign their own study agreement. Once he found this out, he said he just wouldn't sign. Fortunately, he had a change of heart and decided to participate. He was very apprehensive while waiting his turn, ( and threatened to delete all pictures and blogs if I posted some of these of him.)


He seemed to be happy while the needle was in him, it really wasn't that big of a deal. He proudly examined his blood after it was over.
However, about 5 minutes later, he turned very pale, then a bad shade of green, and claimed he didn't feel very well. He had to lay down for about 20 min. and it ended up taking him a few hours to fully recover. Now he refuses to participate any more. It turns out that they would like all participants to give new blood samples every year until they are 18. Kyle says he just doesn't care. Even if his comes back positive, it just doesn't matter.

Travis didn't have to participate since he already has the disease. I gave blood too, but no pictures of me. Andrew was only saved from participating by claiming he had a meeting at work he couldn't get out of. I was slightly skeptical, but since I can't get to his office and drag him out, I let it go.