CHS junior heads to D.C. for juvenile diabetes meeting

Leah Card, 15, of Carson City, is one of two Nevada teens selected from 800 applicants to attend the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s 2023 Children’s Congress from July 9 to 11 in Washington, D.C.

Card and Joy Hodson, 15, of Las Vegas, will travel along with 160 selected delegates to raise awareness about diabetes, meet congressional representatives to discuss their role in advancing research, making insulin affordable for patients with Type 1 diabetes and to better assist JDRF.

Card was diagnosed with T1D on June 6, 2022.

“I decided to look up JDRF just because they always have stuff going on, and found the Children’s Congress … and I thought it’d be cool to be a part of it,” she said. “I was in the middle of starting my club, and we put that (in my application), and I was just really hoping it’d be an amazing opportunity.”

With the help of her mother, Andrea Card, she compiled an application, including one of her recent accomplishments: starting a T1D club at her school.

“On the first day of school last year, I was waiting outside of my health class, and I saw this girl with a Dexcom, a glucose monitor, on her arm,” she said. “It’s pretty obvious, and I went up to her, and I was like, ‘Hey, we’re Dexcom twins,’ and we started talking and joking about starting a club.”

But Card said it occurred to her the idea should become reality.

“We just thought it’d be good for us to have a support group at school, and the idea just blossomed and now it’s a group,” she said.

By the end of the school year, she had eight members and a teacher who also has T1D willing to serve as an adviser.

She also will serve as a counselor in training at a Nevada Diabetes Association camp this summer in Lake Tahoe.

Card’s mother said she has been proud to see her daughter take charge of her condition since she first became sick while on a family vacation in Utah. Leah Card was prediabetic for a couple of months, but the mother and daughter said the symptoms at first were easy to miss.

“We missed all the signs because they’re simple enough to explain away,” Andrea said. “Then we had the phone call that said you need to go to an emergency room. Those results were already several days delayed. … She was in the hospital immediately and they put her on an insulin IV, and it was pretty scary. But it’s one of those things that are manageable if you know what to do.

“She’s been awesome. Most people have a lot of anger about (a diagnosis) for a long time, it’s one of the processes of grief. But she’s just tackled it and said, ‘This is who I am now and I’m going to do something great with it.’”

In addition to the club, Leah decided to make 50 homemade medical alert bracelets she will deliver to the local children’s hospital for youth with T1D.

She also hopes to advocate at Children’s Congress for the renewal of federal funding for Congress’ Special Diabetes Program first formulated in 1997 to advance research at the National Institutes of Health. According to www.jdrf.org, at the end of 2020, Congress had renewed funding for the SDP at $150 million annually through Sept. 30 of this year.

She hopes what she learns from Children’s Congress will be helpful to others in Nevada.

“I’m really passionate about it because we were so close from me slipping away that I don’t want that happening to others,” Card said. “So being able to see the signs is really important.”