Karma

Some people who do not know a lot about diabetes, think that it is a disease of inconvenience, but it is much more than this. For the parents of a diabetic child, it is a 24 hour-a-day commitment to keep your child alive.

Karma - it is said that while difficult to change your karma in this lifetime, it is possible to plant seeds for good karma, which may come to fruition by giving of oneself, living with good intention, and being kind and compassionate to others.

Last night, we attended the JDRF Hope Gala. Heath and Dan's photography was prominently displayed on easels as we entered the country club and walked down the hallway to where the event was being held. It was moving and put faces with why we were all there. I was glad it came together so well after all the work that went into creating these images. Dan was there shooting the event to which we are extremely grateful to him.

It was an wonderful evening and was all about people opening their wallets to raise $$ for a cure. When we walked in, we were asked to scan our credit cards so we could make donations and bid on items without having to exchange cash. We were then immediately asked to buy a $100 raffle ticket for a drawing at the end of the night, we declined, but then bought one shortly after.

The evening began with cocktails and a silent auction. Dr. Lagarde and his wife were there so it was a treat to see them. Then, we sat down for dinner and they did the living and giving award to the Hendron Family who donates boat loads of money every year to benefit their daughter Ruthie who got diabetes when she was 9. She is now in her twenties and living in NYC working for JDRF. Her father gave a very moving speech about how they were on quest not to have diabetes change their lives. Three days after diagnosis, Ruthie and her Dad did an Indian Princess trip taking with them all their new paraphernalia. After this, they did a live auction, where they auctioned off several large ticket items including a Pixar vacation in CA for $20K. All the while, they were doing a multimedia show of Heath and Dan's photos on two giant screens behind the stage.

Then, the real emotion kicked in. Andy Ivarsson made her speech about Oskar being diagnosed. They played the video that TWC had made of some of the new families talking about their experiences with diabetes. Our family was featured and I thought it came out really well. At the end of the video was a large photo of Chance wearing shorts, no shirt and his insulin pump. The audio was of me crying and saying that one day I will share with Chance the details of that first night in the hospital when he was diagnosed. At this point, Heath had tears in his eyes as did many people in the audience.

From here, they launched into a round of direct donations to research for the artificial pancreas. The donations went from $50,000 by CEO of Allscripts to $61 from every party in the room. At the end of this, the total funds raised for the evening totaled $616,000!

The final program item of the evening was the drawing for a one week trip to Hawaii - 100K miles on American, four nights at the Grand Wailea in Maui and three nights at the Four Seasons Resort in Lani (where Bill and Melinda Gates got married). They sold 150 tickets for this at a cost of $100 per ticket. They drew ticket number 47. A woman at the front center table stirred but then realized that she did not have the winning ticket. Then, no one else stood up.

Next thing I know, Heath looks down, opens the envelope with our ticket, and stands up holding ticket 47! I couldn't believe it! Heath had tears in his eyes from all the emotion of the evening and I was stunned that we just won a trip to Hawaii!

Several people came up to us and said how happy they were that we won. That it was good karma for all the work Heath put into the photography for the event and all our efforts with Chance over the last seven months. We were touched by their kindness.

The plan is for the four of us to take our good karma trip in 2011!

Photo credits on this post go to Dan Jahn who got lots of good karma on Saturday by photographing this event in the hopes that it would one day benefit research for Chance. Thank you Dan!