Kris Freeman is the reigning US National cross-country ski champion, currently competing as a part of the US Ski Team in the 2010 Olympic Games .  Kris was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2000, before his first Winter Olympics in 2002. He also competed in the 2006 Winter Olympics. What sets Kris apart from others with type 1 diabetes...

Dr. Barry Koffler is an orthopedic surgeon in Atlanta, Georgia (and he is also our uncle).  He has been practicing medicine for over thirty years, and does volunteer medical work in Central America.  A few weeks ago, horrified by the devastation in Haiti, he left everything and went to help.  It wasn’t easy to get there, but  he...

Jay Cutler is currently the starting quarterback for the Chicago Bears. He was drafted 11th overall in the 2006 NFL Draft by the Denver Broncos, and was selected to play in the Pro Bowl in 2008.  Jay played college football at Vanderbilt, where he still holds a number of University records – total offense, TD passes, passing yards...

When I was twelve, a friend of our mother’s came to pick my sister and me up from school during lunch.  She explained that Jonathan, our 18-month-old brother, was in the hospital, and that he would be fine, and that our parents would explain everything when we saw them after dinner that night.  We spent several nervous hours doing...

Richard Lane, president of Diabetes UK, has type 1 diabetes and was one of the first people in the UK to receive islet cell transplants.  He was the first person in the UK with type 1 diabetes to come off insulin altogether. Richard received the first of three transplants in March 2005 after a long history of diabetes-related complications,...

Manny Hernandez, founder of the diabetes social network site, TuDiabetes.com, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2002.  In 2007, Manny founded TuDiabetes, a community for people touched by diabetes and its Spanish language sister community, EsTuDiabetes. Manny hopes that diabetics of every type, newly diagnosed and veterans, moms...

Kerri Morrone Sparling is the author and creator of Six Until Me, one of the most widely-read diabetes patient blogs.  Kerri, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was six, is sharp, honest, funny and lovable, so it’s no surprise that her blog has a strong and loyal readership- from diabetics, to their caregivers, to...

David Mendosa’s Diabetes Directory was one of the first, and is now one of the largest, websites focusing on diabetes. The site includes approximately 1,000 of his articles about diabetes and an annotated directory to more than 1,400 diabetes-related websites, which are described and linked in the Online Diabetes Resources area. Every...

I sat in a river raft with my cousin and two buddies, about to take on the Upper Gauley River in West Virgina, the second toughest white water in the United States, and the seventh most ferocious in the world.  The Gauley has five distinct class V rapids, and countless others that will make you feel like you are on a wooden rollercoaster. ...

I was a brand new social worker fresh out of graduate school who found herself (luck?) working at one of the most prestigious teaching hospitals in the world. The medical center was known for its cancer research, but it had money to expand a little-known pediatric endocrinology clinic. The doctors wanted someone young who could relate...