The term arthritis conjures up images of a disease that affects individuals in the retirement age. But the truth is that arthritis can affect you no matter what age you are. And no one knows that better than my family.
Brooklynn
My niece Brooklynn was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (JRA) the day before her fourth birthday. Brooklynn’s mom was getting her ready for daycare when she noticed that Brooklynn’s eye was very red and irregular looking. They immediately went to the doctor and blood tests confirmed that Brooklynn had JRA. No one had seen it affect a child’s eye before and after seeing specialists and doctors, Brooklynn eventually had to undergo surgery to remove her left eye.
Now at 10 years old, Brooklynn is a happy and active little girl. She has a prosthesis eye but it is uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time. She also has glasses that she wears to help protect the good eye from rocks and flying objects. They are transitional to help protect the eye from sunlight too. However, JRA will always affect her. “My shins and ankles are pretty good as long as I take my medicine and don’t overdue in gym or on the playground especially with a lot of running!” said Brooklynn. “Rainy days and when it is really cold or snows a lot makes them hurt. I try to stay in as much as possible when it is really cold.”
Team Brooklynn
On behalf of Brooklyn, I formed a team with my dad and friend to race in the People’s Coast Classic Bicycle Ride, a benefit ride for the Arthritis Foundation to help raise funds and awareness about this terrible disease. If you are interested in donating to this cause, please check out our Team Brooklyn donation page to find out more about us. If you’re unable to donate, please feel free to leave us a comment wishing us well with our training and on our ride. Thank you.
The win did not come without some bumps along the way. Rider Jeff Banninck was struck by a car, but was not severely injured and was back on his bike in no time. Another challenge came when rider Adam Driscoll lost a cleat when he tried to pull it out going 23 mph. He not only kept riding, but he increased his speed to around 30 mph – all this with only one cleat intact. The team came to the race to win and nothing else; they accomplished their goal and proved to the world that people with diabetes can do anything with a little hard work and determination.
Here are some words from a few of the riders in Team Type 1 about why they chose this team and what it means to them.
About Team Type 1 and VSP Vision Care
Team Type 1 is a group of athletes living with diabetes. The team includes professional race teams, a triathlon team and a development team. Team Type 1 strives to instill hope and inspiration for people around the world affected by diabetes. VSP® Vision Care is proud to be their exclusive eyecare and eyewear provider.
In the summer of 2001, Sacramento’s Juneteenth festival joined the ranks of other American cities to celebrate, as well as educate, the community on one of America’s most important acts of legislation, the Emancipation Proclamation. Signed into law in 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation declared that all those enslaved were now free.
As a company committed to the community as well as to inclusion and diversity, we are proud to support the Juneteenth Festival and look forward to providing much needed services to those in need.
Yesterday morning, VSP Mobile Clinic Operations Manager Niki M. and Sacramento Juneteenth Festival founder, Gary Simon, discussed VSP’s support of the Festival with KCRA’s Adrianne Bankert.
Team Type 1's Tom Kingery and Lonny Knabe switch leads on a flood plain outside of Alton, Illinois during Race Across America
Team Type 1′s Race Across America Update: Team Type 1 has been averaging 23.5 mph during the Race Across America and crew members suggest the team is, in fact, traveling faster, and may have a chance at beating its own 3,000+ mile record of 5 days, 9 hours and 3 minutes. Team captain Bob Schrank said Kansas was beautiful and they were lucky to have missed a massive storm that hit the night before which caused major flooding. Power was out and lines were down all over western Kansas.
The hills immediately started when they hit Missouri, and they just didn’t stop. The hills were difficult but the guys were thrilled to push each other to ride harder and faster. The team is hungry to break a record this year and plan on making the second half even faster than their first.
Personal update from Team Type 2 rider Rob Coburn: We are moving through Kansas. Now at Yates Center waiting for the transition to the other squad. One of our guys got sick last night so three of us went out about midnight local time and rode about 150 miles. It was a great night. We raced back and forth all night with another team and averaged 20.87 mph for about 35 miles.
We are just over half way through the course. The routine is working itself out and we are all adapting in ways you wouldn’t believe. Our crew is top-notch and essential to making all of this work. A huge thunder storm just went through, glad to still be in the RV. Chances are pretty good we’ll get wet at some point.
About Team Type 1 and VSP Vision Care
Team Type 1 is a group of athletes living with diabetes. The team includes professional race teams, a triathlon team and a development team. Team Type 1 strives to instill hope and inspiration for people around the world affected by diabetes. VSP® Vision Care is proud to be their exclusive eyecare and eyewear provider.
How bad are your glasses? The following contestants are the front runners in VSP’s Eyewear Makeover contest on Facebook, which means the online community voted for them as having the worst frames! If you think you have a winning pair (in this case, the losing pair), submit a photo of yourself wearing your current specs and enter to win a FREE pair of this season’s hottest pair of eyewear!
Final results are less than one month away, but there’s still plenty of time to enter. Everyone can vote once a day so invite all your friends through Facebook to vote! The last day to enter is July 13th. Good luck, everyone!
Over a quarter of the race down, and I’m somewhere in Colorado. The Milky Way is an incredible sight at night, and the Monument Valley just after sun up is truly breathtaking.
It’s 4 p.m. mountain time and I’m off to “bed”. We’re on the road for the next 3-plus hours in an RV to meet the squad that’s riding now. Sleep is hard to come by in shifts of approximately three hours in the RV. I’ll be back on the bike around 1:00 am, and there will be more climbing tonight.
We’ve logged 321 miles from Flagstaff, Arizona to Durango, Colorado in the past 24 hours at an average speed of 17.5 miles per hour. This puts a total of 857 miles behind Team Type 2, and we have 2,147 miles still to complete. Fortunately, the climbs and elevation of the Rocky Mountains will be complete soon, which will bring us to the rolling hills of Kansas and Missouri.
The team is really making good use of our Nike sunglasses which have replaceable lenses. I looked up as I was swapping out the dark lenses to the clear lenses for night riding and saw that two of my teammates were doing the same thing.
If you’re anywhere near our route, come out and cheer us on. We’d love to see you!
About Team Type 1 and VSP Vision Care
Team Type 1 is a group of athletes living with diabetes. The team includes professional race teams, a triathlon team and a development team. Team Type 1 strives to instill hope and inspiration for people around the world affected by diabetes. VSP® Vision Care is proud to be their exclusive eyecare and eyewear provider.
Jerry Willis is a member of Team Type 1′s Elite Team and is competing in the Race Across America. He’ll be providing exclusive updates for VSP throughout the race. Here’s a video Jerry recorded before the race started. He shares about his dream to compete in this race and why he got involved with Team Type 1.
Good luck this week, Jerry!
About Team Type 1 and VSP Vision Care
Team Type 1 is a group of athletes living with diabetes. The team includes professional race teams, a triathlon team and a development team. Team Type 1 strives to instill hope and inspiration for people around the world affected by diabetes. VSP® Vision Care is proud to be their exclusive eyecare and eyewear provider.
Guest blog from Rob Coburn. Rob is a rider with Team Type 2and writes about his journey and team goal for the upcoming race, Race Across America.
I’m Rob Coburn, a rider on Team Type 2, and a member of this year’s team set to take on Race Across America (RAAM). On Thursday, June 10th, 8 of us and a fantastic support crew met up in Oceanside, California to get ready to take off on a week-long, 24 hours-a-day adventure. We will be racing against other teams from around the world on a 3,000 mile route that ends in Annapolis, Maryland. The race starts on Saturday, June 12 at 2 p.m. PST. Our goal this year is to finish in less than 7 days.
Our team wears Nike cycling sunglasses throughout the race and I leave them in my helmet every time I get off the bike to make sure that they’re there for the next ride.
A bit of background on me: I’m 46 and on a mission to manage my diabetes and raise awareness of what people with Type 2 diabetes can achieve. Everyone on our team has type 2 diabetes and we all are acutely aware of the importance of regular eye exams and eye protection. I’m fairly new to cycling at this level and have been training for about a year. I found out I was on the race team in February and have been training just for RAAM since then.
I’ll be providing updates before and during the race to let everyone know how we are doing. I’ll try to include some action shots, but it may be difficult depending on where we are.
If you want, shoot questions back to the blog site and I’ll work with the administrator to try and capture a few to answer during the race. So stay tuned for a wild ride!
About Team Type 2 and VSP Vision Care
Team Type 2 is a group of athletes living with diabetes. Team Type 2 strives to instill hope and inspiration for people around the world affected by diabetes. VSP® Vision Care is proud to be their exclusive eyecare and eyewear provider.
Remember when your mom said “Don’t make that face or else it will freeze that way?” We all know that’s not true, but sometimes you can’t help but make a “squinty face.” This is what you look like when you don’t wear your Transitions glasses or sunglasses on a sunny day. Here are some excellent examples from the 2010 Amgen Tour of California event that prove our point.
Don’t get caught with a squinty face! Enter VSP’s Eyewear Makeover Contest on Facebook to win a new, FREE pair of prescription glasses or sunglasses. Submit a photo of yourself and your current specs for your chance to win. You have till July 13 to submit, but enter soon so you can rack up your votes.
On June 8th and 9th, the VSP Mobile Eyes programpartnered with Dr. Laura Kenyon, O.D., president of the West Michigan Optometric Association (WMOA), and Chris Buczek from the Kent County Health Department (KCHD) Hearing and Vision Screening program, to provide close to 100 children and families with free comprehensive eye examinations and eyewear.
Eight local VSP optometrists from the WMOA volunteered their time and services during the two day event. During the 2009-10 school year, KCHD vision technicians screened more than 46,000 children, and referred more than 6,500 of those children for complete eye exams. Many of those children did not have the resources to receive that follow up care, that’s where Dr. Kenyon and VSP came in.
Dr. Laura Kenyon, president of the West Michigan Optometric Association
“Our member doctors are more than willing to volunteer and give eye examinations to those who may not otherwise receive care,” said Dr. Kenyon. “We are excited to have the VSP mobile eye clinic traveling to Grand Rapids to support both our doctors and the members of our community most in need.”
Here is an article and radio clip that were published yesterday regarding the event.
VSP would like to extend a huge thank you to Dr. Kenyon, all of our VSP doctors who volunteered, and Chris Buczek from the KCHD who helped to make this event a huge success!
For questions about this blog, e-mail vspblogadmin@vsp.com.
For other questions, contact Member Services at 800.877.7195 Monday – Friday.
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