An Outsider's perspective

I recently reconnected with Joel Russell, a good friend from college. After letting him know to look me up if he was ever in California, he told me he would be in Sonoma, California in June riding in the JDRF bike ride and asked if I wanted to ride with him. He also informed me about his young son who had been recently diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. As a father of young kids and someone who always looked up to Joel, it was an easy decision to join him, although in retrospect, I had no clue what I was getting myself into.

Well, we just completed the 102.3 mile, hot and hilly Sonoma 2009 JDRF ride for a cure for juvenile diabetes. While the ride itself was brutal, the overall experience was amazing. It’s funny, I tend to be quiet, shy and reserved, so it comes as quite a shock that I feel compelled to “blog” about my experience. But I wanted to let people like myself—people without direct links to juvenile diabetes—know what a terrific and rewarding experience it is.

I went to the ride thinking I was just there to support Joel and his family, but it was so much more. I heard inspiring, gut-renching stories, met unbelievable people, once again got to know my buddy and his beautiful family and was overcome by a passion and true sense of purpose that I have been searching for since ending my soccer playing days after college. It felt great to see so many people passionately working toward a common goal. In this world of negativity and self promotion, the whole weekend was an awesome display of positivity, enthusiasm and teamwork. And even though I was kind of an “outsider,” I was made to feel like part of the team and to me that was priceless.

I won’t lie, raising the money, training for the ride and the ride itself were difficult. But as the saying goes, most things that come easy aren’t in the end worth doing. After the ride, Joel thanked me for participating, but I strongly believe he had it wrong—it’s me who should be thanking him. I am a doctor and most days, my time is spent sharing bad news. Frankly, it sucks. Then, I think about the usual platitudes about how everything is going to be okay, but I can’t foresee the future and most patients see through all that crap anyway. Participating in this journey and seeing firsthand the resilience of the individuals whose lives have been affected by juvenile diabetes helped replace my emptiness and cynicism with hope, and for that I will always be grateful.

Finding a cure for juvenile diabetes is important, and I sincerely hope that someone like me will read my story and get involved with JDRF. I guarantee you two things if you do. One, you’ll have a rewarding adventure, and two, you will see some short, stumpy, dumpy guy huffing and grunting slowly along and that guy will be me.

Thanks to everyone at JDRF who took part in the Sonoma 2009 ride and, of course, thanks to the Russell family.

Steve Kirschbaum