IF I KISS YOU, WILL I GET DIABETES?
The Book By Quinn Nystrom
A must-have book for people with type 1 diabetes, parents, educators and healthcare professionals to understand a teen’s perspective on living with diabetes.
Some people find their calling late in life. Quinn found hers at the age of 10, when her five-year-old brother, Will, was hospitalized with type 1 diabetes. She began knocking on neighborhood doors in her small northern Minnesota town to raise money for a cure for diabetes. Three years later she was diagnosed with diabetes and re-doubled her efforts. In the last 22 years she has spoken to over 300,000 people. The book is a first-hand account of negotiating life with a chronic illness.
BOOK REVIEW
“Informative and touching, If I Kiss You will I get Diabetes? is the real-life account of Quinn Nystrom who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 13. Familiar with the disease, she helped her brother navigate living with a chronic ailment from the age of five. With the help of her supportive family, Quinn tells of the stages from anger to acceptance about living within the confines of regulating blood sugars.Diabetes takes over a person’s life and as Quinn says, ‘there are no days off.” It’s invasive, debilitating, and there is a constant strain to keep blood sugar levels at bay while trying to keep life balanced. Everything and anything can affect blood sugar levels, from food to stress, leaving someone with this disease a hostage to the illness.
Quinn and her family bravely take the limitations on, and prove to both the world and themselves they will not be defined by their pancreas but rather by their determination to live life to fullest and healthiest. She embraced her challenges and used them to help others faced with the same issues by becoming a spokesperson for the disease. Alex Elle has said,“I’m thankful for my struggle because without it I wouldn’t have stumbled across my strength.” I think the world should be grateful to people like Quinn because she has taken a horrible situation and by sharing her struggle may enlighten and help others to conquer the ignorance surrounding a devastating life-changing illness and help them adjust to weathering and surviving the storm of diabetes.”
-Carole P. Roman