Club's fundraiser destined for diabetes fund
<p>Jay Flynn had to learn to live with Type 1Diabetes as a healthy guy in his 20s and has had to learn to manage his life around the condition. He is sharing his story to help raise awareness of Diabetes and to help the Kalispell Lions Club with their Dream Vacation raffle. Proceeds from the raffle will be divided between local food banks, eyeglass purchases and the Kalispell Regional Healthcare Foundation diabetes fund. (Brenda Ahearn/Daily Inter Lake)</p>
Lions Club offering Dream Vacations
People living with diabetes can experience their body shutting down before their mind has processed it. The first time Jay Flynn had low blood sugar, he woke up in the middle of the night with six firefighters standing around his bed.
His wife had called 911 when she woke up to Flynn murmuring and thrashing in bed. In Flynn’s mind, he was still asleep.
In actuality, his body was going through insulin shock.
Diabetes is when a body’s immune system destroys cells that release insulin, cutting cells off from absorbing the protein needed to produce energy and simply to survive.
As Flynn continued to dream, emergency responders gave him a shot of glucagon and his wife watched him come back to reality.
“I’m not limited by my disease, but my wife would say otherwise. We know what can happen and that’s always in the back of our minds,” Flynn said. “The fact it impacts my family, that’s the hardest part.”
Diabetes is one of the fastest-growing diseases in Montana.
More than 82,000 people in the state have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. Of those, an estimated 26,000 have diabetes but don’t know it. An additional 279,000 people in Montana — 36.4 percent of the state’s adult population — are at risk for developing the disease.
To increase awareness in the Flathead Valley, the Kalispell Lions Club is working with the Diabetes Care and Prevention Center at Kalispell Regional Medical Center to hold a yearlong Dream Vacation raffle.
Lori Malcolm with the Lions Club, said 300 of the $100 tickets will be sold for six trips scattered throughout the nation. She said while the first drawing takes place Tuesday, only 130 tickets have been sold — which isn’t enough to break even.
“I think the little participation could show how hard it can be to talk about this disease,” she said.
Malcolm watched her grandmother, mother, father and brother all struggle with Type 2 diabetes.
“So many people don’t realize they’re in danger of this, or don’t know what to do if they are,” she said. “And it’s important to recognize it before it becomes a critical health issue.”
The proceeds earned from the raffle will be split three ways, with equal shares going to the Lions Club, a local food bank and the Kalispell Regional Healthcare Diabetes Fund. The fund helps people with diabetes pay for their treatment and supports the organization’s needs.
The trips include a seven-night Western Caribbean cruise; round-trip airfare, lodging and tickets to either a Seahawks or Broncos NFL game; a three-night round trip to New York City; a four-day trip with lodging, passes, and airfare to Disneyland; three nights in Washington, D.C., with a night tour of the monuments; and a seven-night Alaskan cruise.
There will be one drawing each month for a different vacation. And every ticket, even a winner’s ticket, is put back into the pot for the rest of the drawings.
Flynn had to learn how to live with Type 1 diabetes when he was 27. Flynn’s form of the disease represents five to 10 percent of the population with diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association.
While Type 1 diabetes and Type 2 diabetes share the issue of high blood sugar levels, Type 1 is believed to be a combination of the genes a person is born with and something in the environment that triggers the genes to become active. In Type 2, the body is born with enough insulin, but a series of triggers — an unhealthy diet, for instance — can make the body resistant to it.
Flynn knew his grandmother had diabetes, but they never talked about it — not even when she had to have a leg amputated due to a complication from the disease. He later learned he had an aunt who had died from insulin complications in her 20s.
Flynn takes between six to 12 insulin shots a day. He is tall and lean and spends most weekends in the mountains with his family or friends.
His diabetes is woven into every experience. He has learned not to take too much insulin while he’s backpacking or working out.
He now knows stress makes his disease unpredictable, and he needs to monitor it more carefully on hard weeks.
His son, who may or may not develop the disease someday, has learned to recognize his father’s sugar levels by looking him in the eyes.
“You’d look at me, you’d never know — I do everything that’s normal, I just need to take insulin to help me metabolize my food. As simple as that,” Flynn said.
Tickets for the Dream Vacation raffle can be found at www.lionsdreamvacation.org or by calling the Kalispell Lions Club at 406-871-4176.
Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.