Meet Our Founder

“DiaBeating The Odds is what happens when purpose meets preparation. God has been preparing me my entire life and has been using what I thought was a “defect” to positively impact the world. For that, I am forever grateful.

 

The many challenges and successes of the last 24 years as a Type 1 Diabetic have shaped my life in ways I could have never imagined. According to my parents, at 11 years old, I was playing outside with the neighborhood kids but constantly kept having to use the bathroom and get water. My family didn't think anything of it because they just thought I was behaving like the regular, active kid I was. My father had recently come home from an Army tour overseas and was in the bedroom with my mother when I came into the house to see him. He hugged me and picked me up and noticed I had lost a lot of weight. It wasn't until then that my mother realized the excessive thirst and trips to the bathroom could be a sign of something bigger. She searched the symptoms online and diabetes popped up as one of the possible causes. My Nana, who lived on the very next street, was a Type 2 diabetic so we went over there to test my sugar. The glucose meter read “HIGH” so they rushed me to the hospital immediately.

 

That day, my life changed forever as I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. I was never open about my diabetes because I was angry, confused, and sad, like "why me?" I didn't know anyone from my community that was around my age that shared the same experience,  so instead of embracing diabetes I shied away from it. In my community, only older people and people that were overweight had diabetes. Here I was,  a healthy, sports-playing kid, yet my body decided to no longer produce insulin. My Nana was the only experience I had with diabetes so there was so much that my family and I didn't understand or know.

 

During my teenage years and into young adulthood I struggled with keeping my A1C down. I hated wearing the very medical devices that could save my life because they didn't look cute with my outfit or because I wanted to avoid the awkward questions that came with having diabetes.

 

We always had insurance but even with insurance, there was still this fear of not being able to afford all my medicine, supplies, doctor visits, or the best diabetes technology. There were times when we couldn't afford all the things, but God always made a way, through a familiar or an unfamiliar face.

 

Although diabetes was a challenge growing up, I didn't let it stop me from living my life. I  manage to play sports my entire life including high school and college basketball. I earned two master's degrees and I get to wake up and do something I love every day. I have an amazing support system that includes a phenomenal husband and the best son ever, and I continue to play sports, travel, and do anything I want with my insulin pump on my hip and my decorated continuous glucose monitor on the back of my arm.

 

It wasn't until my thirties, that I fully embraced diabetes and all that it has given to me. The question went from, “why me?” to, “why not me?” and because I met someone else that was fully free and embraced their diabetes, I learned to do the same.

 

DiaBeating The Odds is here to empower underserved communities through awareness, advocacy, and access to resources. We are here to educate the community on diabetes. We are here to defy stereotypes and embrace diversity in diabetes. We are here to help create communities where people can laugh, cry, and uplift each other through similar experiences. We are here to tell young people, you are different, but there are more people than you think that share your story. We are here to show people that the devices don’t make you, you make them! We are here to fill in the gap when people need a helping hand or when things get so challenging, you just need a little support to keep pushing. DiaBeating The Odds is here to help people find the strength in having diabetes and encourage them to share with the world how they continue to overcome diabetes one day at a time.”

 

 

Portia Benbow
Founder / Executive Director