What Color will it be?

Mom prepare to Cry!
Yesterday on the way to school I asked Jacob how we could have a better morning.

Jacob: I get up get dressed and fix my bed.
Me: yes, anything else.
Jacob: put my jammies away.
Me: yes, how about test yourself.
Jacob: yes (not as enthusiastic as before)
Me: Would it help if I had breakfast all ready for you?
Jacob: Do you think we could make the food in the bags again like we did before?
Me: You mean when we put sugar and cinn. in a bag and made the pull aparts.
Jacob: No, the cereal...
Me: Oh, when I measured out your treats and cereal and had it in bags for you.
Jacob: yes, can we do that again.
Me: I will go buy bags today.

This morning Jacob and I made some bags of Cereal with the point number on the outside of the bag. He took his bag over to his bowl and sat down. He got out his tester, then said to no one in particular..."I wonder what Color it will be?"

"blue, red, yellow"

I asked him what he was talking about, he said "I dreamt last night that I drank the cure for diabetes, and I wonder what color it will be."

















Me: speechless


Jacob: or maybe it will be a shot, or a pill and not a drink at all.

Note: Jacob loves it when I pull the warm clothes out of the dryer and put them on top of him.


So today I logged onto JDRF and found this little quote on the possible future cure. I guess I need to talk to him more about this disease. My heart aches for him.

This is from JDRF web site:

Did you know there's exciting news about a possible cure for diabetes? It's called islet cell transplantation. It sounds like "EYE-let," but it means getting new cells that make insulin. Come with me to see.
How could this cure diabetes? Diabetes is caused when a person's body attacks its own beta cells, which are inside the islets. The beta cells produce insulin, and it helps turn the food you eat into fuel for your cells. Without it, you must take insulin shots every day to live.
Islet cell transplantation could change that. Doctors can transplant the pancreas, which contains the islets, but that requires major surgery and you have to take drugs that can have bad side effects. So it's not really a cure.
But if they could transplant just the islets, where the beta cells are, someday kids like you could receive an injection of new cells and not have to live with diabetes!
The bad news is that islet transplantation is still experimental. There's a long, long way to go to make it a treatment for everyone. Especially kids.
But there's good news! In 1999, scientists in Canada performed islet transplants on seven patients with diabetes, and these transplants were far more successful than ever before! The procedure they used is now called the "Edmonton Protocol," named for the city where it was done. It established "proof of principle" for islet transplants, proving for a fact that islet transplantation can work.
Even so, it's very difficult. An islet transplant is considered a success if it produces normal blood sugars in a patient for at least one year. Before the Edmonton Protocol, only 1 in 10 were successful. Now, 8 in 10 are!
Why is more research needed? Well, you can't run out and get your own transplant just yet. There have only been about 300 performed since 1999.
There are a couple of big reasons why. The first is that there aren't enough islets for everyone, because:
Islets are fragile, so they are difficult to isolate, and
There just aren't enough to cure everyone.
Scientists are working now to figure out how to use fewer islets per procedure. And scientists are trying to get more islets. Here are some possibilities:
Stem cells: possibly an infinite supply, but have political and moral/ethical issues.
Animal cells: plenty of supply, but could spread animal disease to humans.
Genetic engineering of cells: possibly an infinite supply, but face complex technical difficulties.
The other big problem facing researchers is "tolerance" of the islets by the body.
The immune system—the body's natural defense mechanism—wants to fight transplants of all kinds because it sees that they are "foreign" to the body.
The diabetic body in particular is a problem: It attacked its own islets in the first place.
Powerful drugs ("immunosuppressants"), even the Edmonton Protocol's less toxic ones, are needed to allow the transplants to survive, leaving the body at risk for other serious illnesses.
Obviously, a lot more research is needed! Fortunately, it's happening—all over the world. JDRF has put islet transplantation on the fast track and is tackling the problems of supply and tolerance. The National Institutes of Health and JDRF have created the Immune Tolerance Network. Additional centers are using the Edmonton Protocol, which is being fine-tuned all the time.