Tony Cervati, 44, of North Carolina, on Friday, May 11, spoke to students at Glendaal Elementary School about his experience with type 1 diabetes.
A North Carolina man helped put a face to diabetes for local elementary students while inspiring them to achieve their goals and never give up.
The Scotia-Glenville Central School District welcomed Tony Cervati, a professional mountain bike rider, on Friday, May 11, to share his experiences with type 1 diabetes. Cervati spoke at Glendaal Elementary School, but the district live streamed the talk to the other three elementary schools in the district.
After Cervati’s talk, students at the four elementary schools all walked at their respective schools at the same time. Students across all the district’s schools raised funds for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Kids Walk to Cure Diabetes, which led the students to participate in the nationwide walk.
Betsy Williams, a nurse at Glendaal and a coordinator of the event, said she got the idea to hold the fundraiser after doing a Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation walk a few years ago.
“I felt it was time to raise awareness again with our students and our staff members,” she said. “It is a great cause to help support the student and staff that have diabetes themselves or in their lives.”
Williams said there are two students at Glendaal with diabetes and she has seen a total of six different students in the school with the disease. Williams also has type 2 diabetes.
“I like to encourage and show the kids that they can really do anything they want even though they have challenges … not only with diabetes but other disease processes as well,” Williams said. “The other part of my message is health and wellness and making sure everybody is making healthy choices.”
Cervati, 44, said he’s “just a man that rides a bike,” but some might say that’s more than a little modest.
He runs a website, www.type1rider.org, where he shares his racing and cycling event participation as a method to convey information about daily management of his diabetes, along with riding training and technologies available for diabetes.
The website eventually led to the creation of the Type1Rider Organization, which he founded.
“I just started to take notes about my preparation … that my doctors and nutritionist could go to and read instead of me calling them,” Cervati said. “Before long, I started to get emails and being contacted for all these other type 1 diabetics from all over the world that were trying to do similar stuff.”
He wasn’t always as open about his disease though. Until he went to college, he said he basically “kept it to himself.” The Internet has also broadened the dialogue and allowed people with the disease to connect, he said.
“We didn’t have email and Facebook and Twitter, so you were by yourself,” Cervati said. “The biggest mistake I made … was I didn’t tell anybody.”
Since he started the website in May 2005, he has been contacted several times for speaking engagements at events and has traveled across the country to help raise awareness of type 1 diabetes.
“I really do enjoy talking to younger populations because a lot of times … somebody a little older is so set in their ways,” he said. “These guys you are maybe able to give them some of the information you have gathered and help them along their path.”
He also didn’t charge Scotia-Glenville anything for the talk and paid for travel expenses out of pocket.
“Everywhere I go I just do it out of pocket,” he said. “My mom never once gave me a shot or nothing … so I kind of had to learn to do it myself.”
He said he remembers when he was young and he just wants to do something to help kids that might have a lot of questions or fears around the disease. He said the idea behind it “is worth it” to him.
“If I can explain where I have been and the things I have tried to do and what works and what doesn’t work and it helps even to just take the pressure off … that is just kind of what they need to hear,” he said.
The elementary students were also younger than his typical audience, he said, so he tries to share diabetes information without “hanging on it” to keep students engaged.
Type 1 diabetes, previously known as juvenile diabetes, is when a person’s body does not produce insulin. Insulin is needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into energy the body needs. Only 5 percent of people with diabetes have this form, according to the American Diabetes Association.
Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of the disease, which is when the body doesn’t produce insulin or the cells ignore insulin that’s produced. A total of 25.8 million people in the country, or around 8.3 percent, have diabetes, according to the ADA.
Cervati was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 8 years old and since then he has tested his blood glucose over 80,000 times, along with taking almost 52,000 injections before starting pump therapy.
A lot has changed in the technology used to treat diabetes, he said. When he was first diagnosed there weren’t glucose meters so he would have to do urine samples that gave ranges of glucose levels.
“It was just a way different era,” he said.
One problem though, he said, is how expensive the disease can be to treat.
“You have this disease that costs a boat load of money … and the best thing you can is exercise, eat better and try to find funding for a cure or better treatment,” he said. “It is a very complex problem and there is no quick (solution).”
Diabetes was estimated to cost the country $174 billion in 2007, according to the ADA, and $116 billion of the total is from direct medical costs with the remaining $58 billion stemming from indirect costs, such as disability, work loss or premature mortality.
