Emma's Pump PAX
Donation protected
HI,
My name is Emma, I am 12 years old. I am a type 1 diabetic. My goal with this campaign is to raise money to make my dream of a fun and fashionable diabetic supply bag come true for all kids and adults living with Type 1, just like me. There are no fun, fashionable and functional pump bags out there. The choices diabetics have are either very juvenile and not functional, or they are made by medical companies for older people and are not fashionable!
I have designed a diabetic pump supply bag and it makes me feel more confident and less different, it also makes my daily life easier. I need your help in raising the money to place my first order of these bags I designed to make them available to all kids, and adults, like me! These bags will bring a bit of joy and ease to the daily lives of people living with T1D. I know from first hand experience, and I need your help to share this with others.
You see, as a T1D, I have to carry very expensive medical equipment everywhere I go that keeps my body functioning. My pancreas does not make insulin, a hormone that turns sugars into energy, your pancreas keeps you alive. Mine will never work again. I wear an insulin pump device that delivers insulin which I program and manage on my own, and this is not always easy. The bag/case it comes with from the medical company is not fun and fashionable, it is not attractive and is easy to leave behind at restaurants and events because it is small and black.
See below a photo of me wearing one of my designs.
Protype #1 Boho Chic style
We are offering Gifts for donations! See info below.
*Please view Emma's video attached to this page, her little brother edited and made the video with her.
Emma
Me in Kindergarten, one year before I developed T1D.
My friend Ryan came to visit me in the Hospital. This was our first week of 1st grade.
In the Hospital
Here is my story told by my mom
When Emma was 6 years old she was rushed to the ER after a visit to her Dr. before school, it was her 3rd day of 1st grade. She was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. We did not know what this disease was or how she got it. We were very confused. No one in our immediate family has it. Her pediatrician said her blood sugar level was 860, normal blood sugar is 80-150. If I had not taken her to the Dr. that morning she threw up pure water, she would have gone into a coma at school, in 1st grade! After hours in the ER, then spending three days in the children's isolation unit, she was moved to a room in the children's wing of the hospital where we learned how her life had now changed forever. Type 1 Diabetes is not purly genetic or caused because you are unhealthy like Type 2 Diabetes. Type 1 is an autoimmune disease thought to be caused by a strain of stomach virus. Her own antibodies had destroyed her pancreas, and this had been happening slowly over the past few months, we had no idea. What was previously known as “Juvenile Diabetes” is now known as Type 1 Diabetes as this disease is on a rise afflicting adults and seniors as well as children.
Today Emma is a smart, independent, 7th grade honor roll student who loves to dance, go shopping with her friends, paint her nails, play with her dogs and play the Violin. T1D is an invisible disease, just looking at her she is a healthy, normal kid. Living life with Type 1 can be a daily struggle. She has to test her blood sugar just to eat and because insulin is a hormone, just her emotions can alter her blood sugars drastically. So being a tween and becoming a teenager is going to be challenging! Emma has to carry her medical supplies and blood glucose supplies everywhere she goes.
Facts about T1D
Having Type 1 is a very expensive disease. There are medical supplies, Dr. visits, sometimes ER visits, Insulin (that keeps her alive) , Continuous Glucose monitors and supplies, pump supplies, Glucagon pens for home and school, test strips, glucose tablets.... It adds up fast each month. This will never stop for Emma, it will never go away, it is a constant chasing of numbers and food to exercise ratios. Just to eat an apple she has to test her blood, calculate numbers, enter them on her monitor, or take an insulin shot, deliver the insulin and then she can eat an apple. She has to decide if it is ok to eat something a little higher in carbs and then balance that with lower carb foods the rest of the day. If her blood sugar is low, she needs carbs, if she is high she can't eat sweet foods or those high in carbs. She has to do this every time she eats, before exercise, before a test at school, before traveling long distances, going into a movie theater....it never stops for her. She does not get a day off, ever! Holidays, birthday parties, going to sporting events... these are all difficult for a T1D.
If not managed properly, daily and hourly, there are many scary complications that can result from too many high or low blood sugars. A few of these can be kidney failure, heart disease, limb amputations, thyroid failure, and death.
Emma's Dream
It was Emma's dream of having a fashionable bag to carry all of her supplies in. It is hard enough on a tween/teen in school to not be so different, and she wants to feel just like the other kids at school. The small black bag that the diabetic pumps come with are not cute and are easy to leave behind in dark restaurants, get lost at school and I have even found one someone left on a bench in the mall! The medical monitors, and supplies they carry are VERY EXPENSIVE! You don't wan't to loose it. You know how you feel if you leave your cell phone at a restaurant? Well imagine if that cell phone actually helped keep you alive!
We collaborated with a friend
A friend of mine is a designer of bags and accessories. Caryn Sterling is the owner of Rolf Bleu and we went to her for help in designing the pump bags based on Emma's needs and her style. Caryn has helped us get the first prototype styles made and they are perfect for Emma's needs!
For those of you who donate to Emma's
campaign, you will recieive gifts from Rolf Bleu! http://www.rolfbleu.com
I am so proud of Emma for making this happen. Emma had help with the name of her bag from another good friend, Troy. PAX means Peace. So this fit perfectly!
A Service Dog
Emma's second dream is to get a Diabetic service dog. Emma's hopes that the money she raises from the sale of her Pump PAX will go to getting her service dog.
These dogs cost $16,000 and take up to two years to train.
We first heard of Diabetes Service Dogs when she was 8 years old. Since then, we have researched and learned from owners of these dogs, how these dogs are faster and more accurate than medical devices at warning of low or high blood sugars. These service dogs save lives! They are trained to smell your hormone levels going up or down, they are amazing! It has become her biggest dream to have one of her own. My dream for her is to get a dog now (it can take up to 2 years to fully train the dog and owner to work together) so that when she is a busy High School student and then going onto college, that she won't be alone and will have the dog as her support and possibly save her from ER visits or worse.
Your Help!
With your help of funding her campaign, Emma can create her pump bags for kids and adults, purchase an order from the manufacturer for their minimum per style for boys and girls, create a professional web site and pay her attorney fees for starting her company.
Then she can sell them online for other Type One Diabetics. She will donate 10% of the profits to JDRF, a non-profit that is doing critical research for curing and stopping T1D. The rest of the profits will help in getting her service dog.
Emma wants to educate and raise awareness of T1D. With your help, she will be able to have a web site, sell her pump PAX around the world and share her story! You will be making her dream come true of getting a service dog who will make her life better. Emma is a dog lover!
Prototype #2 City Chic style
Our Deadline
We would like to place the minimum order by Summer 2016. We need $12,000 to place the order from the manufacturer. This includes two styles for girls and one for boys. We are taking pre-orders for the bags and there is production time and shipping we need to account for. Emma will sell her bags for $28.00 and has 3 styles to choose from.
The rest of the money will be used to set up her company.
You can see more images of her pump PAX and how she uses it on her social media Instagram and Facebook
@ Emmas_Pump_PAX .
visit my web site
http://www.emmaspumppax.com
You see, Emma is not just doing this for herself, she wants to create something to help others, to give back to a community of people who have to live life struggling in silence on a daily basis. This disease is unknown to most people and she wants to bring light and education to it. She wants to help others and sees this as a small way to give back to others like her. She is a compassionate girl and she really would love to buy a service dog one day. Emma's goal in this campaign is to help bring a little bit of joy to the daily lives of kids like her who live with T1D by making fun, functional and fashionable pump PAX!
"When I have my pump PAX with me, I feel more confident and less different than other kids my age. I am proud of wearing my bag because no one can see what is in it. They just think it is a cute bag. When I take out my supplies to test my blood sugar, my friends think the bag is cool and special. You can even use my pump PAX to carry makeup and any other personal items you have and it keeps everything secure, organized and safe! "
We hope you will be moved by Emma’s strength and character as much as we are.
"Thank you for reading my story and for supporting my dream of bringing happiness to other kids like me."
Love,
Emma
My name is Emma, I am 12 years old. I am a type 1 diabetic. My goal with this campaign is to raise money to make my dream of a fun and fashionable diabetic supply bag come true for all kids and adults living with Type 1, just like me. There are no fun, fashionable and functional pump bags out there. The choices diabetics have are either very juvenile and not functional, or they are made by medical companies for older people and are not fashionable!
I have designed a diabetic pump supply bag and it makes me feel more confident and less different, it also makes my daily life easier. I need your help in raising the money to place my first order of these bags I designed to make them available to all kids, and adults, like me! These bags will bring a bit of joy and ease to the daily lives of people living with T1D. I know from first hand experience, and I need your help to share this with others.
You see, as a T1D, I have to carry very expensive medical equipment everywhere I go that keeps my body functioning. My pancreas does not make insulin, a hormone that turns sugars into energy, your pancreas keeps you alive. Mine will never work again. I wear an insulin pump device that delivers insulin which I program and manage on my own, and this is not always easy. The bag/case it comes with from the medical company is not fun and fashionable, it is not attractive and is easy to leave behind at restaurants and events because it is small and black.
See below a photo of me wearing one of my designs.
Protype #1 Boho Chic style
We are offering Gifts for donations! See info below.
*Please view Emma's video attached to this page, her little brother edited and made the video with her.
Emma
Me in Kindergarten, one year before I developed T1D.My friend Ryan came to visit me in the Hospital. This was our first week of 1st grade.In the Hospital
Here is my story told by my mom
When Emma was 6 years old she was rushed to the ER after a visit to her Dr. before school, it was her 3rd day of 1st grade. She was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. We did not know what this disease was or how she got it. We were very confused. No one in our immediate family has it. Her pediatrician said her blood sugar level was 860, normal blood sugar is 80-150. If I had not taken her to the Dr. that morning she threw up pure water, she would have gone into a coma at school, in 1st grade! After hours in the ER, then spending three days in the children's isolation unit, she was moved to a room in the children's wing of the hospital where we learned how her life had now changed forever. Type 1 Diabetes is not purly genetic or caused because you are unhealthy like Type 2 Diabetes. Type 1 is an autoimmune disease thought to be caused by a strain of stomach virus. Her own antibodies had destroyed her pancreas, and this had been happening slowly over the past few months, we had no idea. What was previously known as “Juvenile Diabetes” is now known as Type 1 Diabetes as this disease is on a rise afflicting adults and seniors as well as children.
Today Emma is a smart, independent, 7th grade honor roll student who loves to dance, go shopping with her friends, paint her nails, play with her dogs and play the Violin. T1D is an invisible disease, just looking at her she is a healthy, normal kid. Living life with Type 1 can be a daily struggle. She has to test her blood sugar just to eat and because insulin is a hormone, just her emotions can alter her blood sugars drastically. So being a tween and becoming a teenager is going to be challenging! Emma has to carry her medical supplies and blood glucose supplies everywhere she goes.
Facts about T1D
Having Type 1 is a very expensive disease. There are medical supplies, Dr. visits, sometimes ER visits, Insulin (that keeps her alive) , Continuous Glucose monitors and supplies, pump supplies, Glucagon pens for home and school, test strips, glucose tablets.... It adds up fast each month. This will never stop for Emma, it will never go away, it is a constant chasing of numbers and food to exercise ratios. Just to eat an apple she has to test her blood, calculate numbers, enter them on her monitor, or take an insulin shot, deliver the insulin and then she can eat an apple. She has to decide if it is ok to eat something a little higher in carbs and then balance that with lower carb foods the rest of the day. If her blood sugar is low, she needs carbs, if she is high she can't eat sweet foods or those high in carbs. She has to do this every time she eats, before exercise, before a test at school, before traveling long distances, going into a movie theater....it never stops for her. She does not get a day off, ever! Holidays, birthday parties, going to sporting events... these are all difficult for a T1D.
If not managed properly, daily and hourly, there are many scary complications that can result from too many high or low blood sugars. A few of these can be kidney failure, heart disease, limb amputations, thyroid failure, and death.
Emma's Dream
It was Emma's dream of having a fashionable bag to carry all of her supplies in. It is hard enough on a tween/teen in school to not be so different, and she wants to feel just like the other kids at school. The small black bag that the diabetic pumps come with are not cute and are easy to leave behind in dark restaurants, get lost at school and I have even found one someone left on a bench in the mall! The medical monitors, and supplies they carry are VERY EXPENSIVE! You don't wan't to loose it. You know how you feel if you leave your cell phone at a restaurant? Well imagine if that cell phone actually helped keep you alive!
We collaborated with a friend
A friend of mine is a designer of bags and accessories. Caryn Sterling is the owner of Rolf Bleu and we went to her for help in designing the pump bags based on Emma's needs and her style. Caryn has helped us get the first prototype styles made and they are perfect for Emma's needs!
For those of you who donate to Emma's
campaign, you will recieive gifts from Rolf Bleu! http://www.rolfbleu.com
I am so proud of Emma for making this happen. Emma had help with the name of her bag from another good friend, Troy. PAX means Peace. So this fit perfectly!
A Service Dog
Emma's second dream is to get a Diabetic service dog. Emma's hopes that the money she raises from the sale of her Pump PAX will go to getting her service dog.
These dogs cost $16,000 and take up to two years to train.
We first heard of Diabetes Service Dogs when she was 8 years old. Since then, we have researched and learned from owners of these dogs, how these dogs are faster and more accurate than medical devices at warning of low or high blood sugars. These service dogs save lives! They are trained to smell your hormone levels going up or down, they are amazing! It has become her biggest dream to have one of her own. My dream for her is to get a dog now (it can take up to 2 years to fully train the dog and owner to work together) so that when she is a busy High School student and then going onto college, that she won't be alone and will have the dog as her support and possibly save her from ER visits or worse.
Your Help!
With your help of funding her campaign, Emma can create her pump bags for kids and adults, purchase an order from the manufacturer for their minimum per style for boys and girls, create a professional web site and pay her attorney fees for starting her company.
Then she can sell them online for other Type One Diabetics. She will donate 10% of the profits to JDRF, a non-profit that is doing critical research for curing and stopping T1D. The rest of the profits will help in getting her service dog.
Emma wants to educate and raise awareness of T1D. With your help, she will be able to have a web site, sell her pump PAX around the world and share her story! You will be making her dream come true of getting a service dog who will make her life better. Emma is a dog lover!
Prototype #2 City Chic style
Our Deadline
We would like to place the minimum order by Summer 2016. We need $12,000 to place the order from the manufacturer. This includes two styles for girls and one for boys. We are taking pre-orders for the bags and there is production time and shipping we need to account for. Emma will sell her bags for $28.00 and has 3 styles to choose from.
The rest of the money will be used to set up her company.
You can see more images of her pump PAX and how she uses it on her social media Instagram and Facebook
@ Emmas_Pump_PAX .
visit my web site
http://www.emmaspumppax.com
You see, Emma is not just doing this for herself, she wants to create something to help others, to give back to a community of people who have to live life struggling in silence on a daily basis. This disease is unknown to most people and she wants to bring light and education to it. She wants to help others and sees this as a small way to give back to others like her. She is a compassionate girl and she really would love to buy a service dog one day. Emma's goal in this campaign is to help bring a little bit of joy to the daily lives of kids like her who live with T1D by making fun, functional and fashionable pump PAX!
"When I have my pump PAX with me, I feel more confident and less different than other kids my age. I am proud of wearing my bag because no one can see what is in it. They just think it is a cute bag. When I take out my supplies to test my blood sugar, my friends think the bag is cool and special. You can even use my pump PAX to carry makeup and any other personal items you have and it keeps everything secure, organized and safe! "
We hope you will be moved by Emma’s strength and character as much as we are.
"Thank you for reading my story and for supporting my dream of bringing happiness to other kids like me."
Love,
Emma
Organizer
Kristina Goldberg
Organizer
Thousand Oaks, CA