By SARAH DOOLITTLE, Four Points News

The Davis family of Steiner Ranch has raised over $150,000 dollars toward diabetes research with the JDRF One Walk since their son Parker was diagnosed five years ago.

The family raises money as a team, named Team Parker, and in 2017 alone collected over $51,000 in donations. Theirs is the first family in Austin to have done so.

Jaimie and Jason Davis first noticed something was wrong with Parker just before he started kindergarten.

“For about a week, Parker was extremely moody, had excessive thirst and urination, and I mean super excessive! Then he started puking, which unfortunately occurred on a Saturday,” when doctors offices are closed, explained Jaimie.

When they were able to take Parker to see his pediatrician first thing Monday morning, Jaimie said, “his blood sugars were above 700 and we learned later he was super close to going into a diabetic ketoacidosis coma.”

This was the family’s terrifying introduction to Type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile diabetes, an autoimmune disease triggered by genetic factors and some viruses and primarily diagnosed in children and adolescents.

For people with Type 1 diabetes, their bodies can no longer produce insulin, meaning they have to monitor their insulin levels throughout the day and get insulin shots.

Parker remembers feeling at the time of his diagnosis, “scared, confused, and upset that I was going to have get shots for the rest of my life.”

Now five years after his diagnosis, Parker is a 4th grader at Steiner Ranch Elementary where his brother Luke attends the 2nd grade.

Instead of shots, Parker has an insulin pump, worn in a fanny pack, that administers insulin through a catheter inserted under his skin. “He has to change out his pump infusion site every three days, which is a big needle,” said Parker’s mom. “He also has to prick his finger 10-12 times per day to calibrate his pump.”

Rather than letting Type 1 diabetes defeat them, the family has come out swinging against the disease. On Nov. 12, their friends Michael and Christina Underwood hosted a golf tournament at the University of Texas Golf Club where all proceeds went to Team Parker JDRF.

“I thanked everyone for coming,” said Parker of the tournament, which raised $3,000 and was added to the total funds the family raised last year for JDRF. “I also played with my friend Luke Underwood.”

Parker’s mom Jaimie is grateful too for those who supported the tournament and their family’s team in the years since Parker’s diagnosis.

“I would like to thank all of our friends, family, coaches and teachers that have supported Team Parker over the past five years. The support is truly humbling,” she said.

The family’s diabetes challenge is ongoing. “You can’t ever take a break from diabetes and every day it is struggle to keep (Parker) alive,” said Jaimie. “We have to check him every night, sometimes multiple times, to make sure he isn’t too high or too low. It’s like having a newborn all over again.”

At school, “Parker has to go to the nurse three to four times per day, and if (his insulin) is low he has to take breaks from sports and recesses, which is his least favorite part of the disease,” Jaimie said.

Educating others about Type 1 diabetes is also important to the family, and Jaimie shares that, “The prevalence of type 1 diabetes in children under the age of five has increased a staggering 70 percent in the past decade — which is super scary — possibly due to environmental triggers, or contact with new viruses. No one really knows why we have seen such an increase.”

Despite the challenges, Jaimie wants people to know that, “You can live a totally normal life with diabetes.” However, she added, “Your normal is very different from most people’s normal.”

For more information about Type 1 diabetes and Parker, visit www.jdrf.org and search for Team Parker in Austin.