Tour de Cure essay

They say that some events are so world-changing that corners of our minds become stuck in time and place: where were you when Kennedy was shot? What were you doing when that first plane hit that first tower on 9/11?

When my brother was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, I was 15 and in a sporting goods store with my dad. We were shopping for a lacrosse stick that I would hardly use and would give away a year later, so fleeting was my interest in the sport. My mom called us from the hospital to tell us that Martin had just been admitted with a blood glucose level of 560-something and that we should come over. I made my dad buy the stick before we left.

Inasmuch as I was an athletic dabbler, the chubby nine-year-old in the hospital bed wanted to be an athlete. He loved football, and at the start of his own high school career, he signed up for the team. However, his irregular sugar levels caused him to sit out practices and, therefore, games, until, frustrated and devastated, he ended up quitting.

During the years that followed, Martin took to haunting the local gym, and my dad took to the road as part of the ADA’s Tour de Cure. Then, last year, Dad gave me a bike with the intent that I would ride the Tour with him, but I was apprehensive at best. Not one training ride went smoothly: I walked up hills, I fell over (usually from a standstill), I sat on curbs and pouted, cried occasionally, and screamed at my dad for “making” me do this. I began to see my bike, not as something I was working with, but as something I was battling; I wondered whether it, like the lacrosse stick, was a horrible sporting-equipment mistake.

When it came time for the Tour, Dad signed up for the century (100-mile) ride, and I opted for the more realistic, 30-mile course. But I wasn’t alone: surrounded by diabetics and their friends and family members, I had my brother at the forefront of my mind. Twelve years after his diagnosis, Martin has a personal training certificate and a job as an EMT. He’s majoring in Fire Sciences and looking forward to a career as a paramedic/fire fighter. Most impressive of all, his A1C is 5.8, and his average blood glucose level is about 100. Having left the chubby kid with the fluctuating sugar levels behind, Martin is definitely working with his diabetes now, instead of battling it. And there was no reason why I couldn’t ditch the bratty, motivationally challenged teenager and do the same with my bike.

So I did. I rode all 30 of those miles, through hilly neighborhood backstreets and against the coastal winds. I passed a few people walking their bikes, but I did not join them. I did not fall. I did not cry. And when it was over, Martin met Dad and me at the finish, and the three of us went home to celebrate, as champions.