Transcription of Lisa Medina for the show Home in Maine, #89
Dr. Lisa: We are fortunate here in Maine to have many people who love to ride their bikes. This time of year is a perfect time of year to be riding bikes and especially a perfect time of year to be participating in events such as the Kennebunk’s Tour de Cure, which is coming up right here in June. With us today, we have Lisa Medina, who is the Event Manager for the Kennebunk’s Tour de Cure.
You’ve not ridden your bike up but you’ve driven your car up from Boston this morning to be with us. Thank you so much for doing that.
Lisa: I’m happy to be here.
Dr. Lisa: Tell us about the Tour de Cure.
Lisa: The Tour de Cure, it’s one of the largest cycling events raising money for the American Diabetes Association, which has a three-prong approach where we have our money go which is diabetes research, information and advocacy. Right now, I’m doing a large chunk of that research money comes because of Boston being the epicenter for the medical community. We love to see that all the money really does, from nationwide, comes back into New England.
The cycling event, we have five different events in New England. I run the Kennebunk’s Tour de Cure out of Wells, Maine. We also have a ride in Rhode Island, the Ocean State Tour de Cure, in Connecticut, the Connecticut Tour de Cure, in Massachusetts, the North Shore Tour de Cure and our multistate ride, which is a 150/550 plus which is a multistate ride coming out of Woburn, either looping back up to Bideford for the 150 and then looping all through Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and back to Woburn in Massachusetts.
All different kinds of rides, there’s really something for everyone. The Kennebunk’s Tour de Cure specifically we have five different routes. If you’re not an avid cyclist, we have something for everyone. We have a 5K, which is our three-mile family fun ride. We have a 25K, a 50K, 100K and a 100-mile century ride. We have anything from serious cyclist to someone who just wants to get on the bike and really support the cause.
Dr. Lisa: Why did somebody decide that biking would be a good event to participate in when it came to diabetes?
Lisa: The thing with diabetes is really having an active lifestyle really helps you turn and take control of the disease rather than it controlling you. We have a very unique program, similar to some of the breast cancer events. We have a Red Rider Program. Our Red Rider Program is any participant living with type 1, type 2 or gestational diabetes, they get a free recognition sort of gift, day of event. It’s a jersey that says, “Red Rider and I ride with Diabetes.”
These are the people that are really letting, taking exercise, really taking control of their diabetes because some people, even with type 2, don’t even need to take medication because they’re revamping their lifestyle through either meal planning and exercise. Diabetes is progressive of a disease so later on, while they may be able to prolong without medication, sometimes later on they may have to but exercising really delays that process.
With the bike ride, we used to have some walk events in the area but we consolidated our events. We have a walk event for those people that aren’t cyclists in Boston. Some people really do come from Maine. Walgreens is one of our supporters nationally. They come down to the Boston Walk.
The thing with cycling is that we get out there together. We have some fun. We have rest stops all along the coastline of Maine, which is really beautiful. It’s a nice something to look forward to. It’s not just your everyday walk around a loop. It’s really about the experience.
Dr. Lisa: What I like about the Tour De Cure Kennebunks is that … or the Kennebunk’s, excuse me, Tour de Cure is that it’s affiliated with the Kennebunkport Festival, which is all about going out and living your life, eating good food and going dancing with the Pop the Kennebunks and really embracing this very active lifestyle on the one hand but then it’s also paired with a bike riding event where you can go out and you can do what you need to do after you’ve eaten all that good food and really enjoyed your life. This is the first year, I think, that you’ve had that association.
Lisa: Exactly, yeah. This is the first year we’ve been associated with Maine Magazine. It’s really great because so far we’ve had a few teams come from our partnership. It’s really great because people that embrace the Kennebunkport Festival embrace the beautiful coastline of Maine and embrace the outdoor lifestyle. It’s just a really nice pairing.
Dr. Lisa: It’s also interesting because the Kennebunkport Festival, a large portion of the proceeds goes to benefit Share Our Strength, which of course is a hunger relief organization. You have Share Our Strength over here with hunger relief and then you have Tour de Cure, which is diabetes education, advocacy and …
Lisa: And research.
Dr. Lisa: … and research. It’s just an interesting … it’s all about you eat good food. You help other people who don’t have as much to eat and then you’re also helping other people who are trying to live healthy, active lifestyles.
Lisa: Exactly.
Dr. Lisa: What have you noticed about the need for diabetes research and advocacy over the last 10, 15 years or so?
Lisa: The thing is that the incidence of diabetes has really started to increase in the past couple of years, whether it be through obesity, epidemic or through any family history. Our population is really aging right now. It’s really increasing, especially with type 2 diabetes.
About 26.8 million people have diabetes and about 90 to 95% of those people have type 2. With the incidence increasing, our government funding is decreasing. We’re just trying to fill in that void where there is a lack of funding in diabetes research and trying to support type 1, type 1 and gestational.
We’re a really unique organization because we support all of those facets of diabetes. While they are very different, you still deal with the same kind of pain associated with that, whether it be like pricking your finger 10 to 15 times a day and checking your blood sugars. It’s not something you can really take a break from. It’s really starting to increase. I feel like it’s something we should be really aware about.
A lot of people, because it’s a silent disease, we don’t really think it’s something serious. You can’t visibly see the consequences of diabetes. When people aren’t taking care of it, some of the complications could be nerve damage, heart disease, kidney failure, all of those things.
A lot of times, you hear people passing away in all that things. People don’t realize that its complications from their diabetes. My grandfather passed away and he had diabetes but it was through kidney failure. That’s what we attribute that to. The more and more that I’ve been involved with this organization, the more and more I see how many people have been touched with this disease. I think just about everyone knows at least one to two people that have been affected by type 1, type 2 or gestational.
Dr. Lisa: Now, you have degrees from the University of Delaware. You have a master’s degree from Emerson in Communication Management. You chose to go into …
Lisa: Nonprofit, yes.
Dr. Lisa: … nonprofit and you specifically chose to go into something that was health related and had a family connection for you.
Lisa: Exactly.
Dr. Lisa: Was that on purpose?
Lisa: I would say it is on purpose. I did when I started working, I actually started interning here. I focused my degree on public relations. I ended up really focusing on the health communication side. I picked the American Diabetes Association because not only my grandfather was affected but my mother is living with type 2. It’s something very personal to me.
I have the family history. It’s something that I could be at risk for. It’s a little nerve-wrecking because it’s a drastic change from having not to manage something on a daily basis on an hourly basis to really shifting and really having to take care of yourself because there are some serious complications if you don’t.
It wasn’t an accident. It’s definitely … it was the right move to do. Even though I’ve been affected personally, I meet so many people that have been affected just by the ride. We even have a cyclist who works at KeyBanc. He really used the Tour to really embrace the active lifestyle. When he had started, he was around 245 pounds. He could barely get through the 25K. Right now, he’s lost 150 pounds and uses the Tour as the training goal year round. This is his third year of doing it. Now he’s all the way down to the 100 mile.
It’s really something you could really look forward to and you could use to embrace meal planning, just being healthy because it can really take over you if you don’t embrace and take control of it.
Dr. Lisa: I want to give you a lot of credit because clearly, you are young. You’re accomplished. You have a master’s degree. You’re young enough so that you could just say, “Oh, this will never happen to me. I don’t have to worry about this.” Instead, you are doing what you’ve just said. You’re being very mindful. You’re saying, “My family has this. I don’t know what my future looks like but I’m certainly not going to just roll over and not do anything about it.”
Lisa: Right. I’m very hopeful because a lot of the research going on right now makes me hopeful that there could be a cure in the near future. Right now, a former coworker of mine did the bionic pancreas study where essentially she was a week free without type 1 diabetes, which is something that I had never thought that would happen this soon. They might even potentially have it by 2017 out commercially, which is something that’s really remarkable to how far we’ve come.
I knew the insulin pump was like the size of my head at some point and then now it’s just so small and so seamless. People are able to really take control. That’s a lot because we started out as a research organization. We’ve really taken it … we’re also focusing on prevention and management because we don’t know when there’s going to be that cure for type 2 and type 1. We really need to take all facets into consideration.
Dr. Lisa: It is an interesting challenge because diabetes is something that people live with. It is something that has what they call end-organ damage. You can have a nerve problem. You can end up getting amputations of your feet because of nerve damage, kidney failure, all these things you’ve talked about and yet, it’s not like cancer where people get it and they could potentially die and it seems so much more dire.
Lisa: People control it. People just figure it’s not that bad. If you don’t see it, you don’t see the consequences, unless it gets really serious where someone loses a foot or loses a leg or ends up in a hospital, you just think they’re fine. You just think it’s just they’re pricking their finger, they’re working through it. I just don’t think people can visually see that could be very serious. It is quite the grind to go through all of that on a daily basis. I don’t know how people do it. I really don’t.
Dr. Lisa: Is this something that you think causes sometimes a little bit more of a challenge for the Diabetes Association when it comes to having people don’t make donations or …?
Lisa: Yeah, I think sometimes people associate with the type 2 organization and they feel that people are … they’re letting themselves go. They did this to themselves. There’s the family history. There’s things in the food and all these things. Quite frankly, you don’t need to be obese to have diabetes. It could happen to anyone. I’ve seen it happen to anyone.
I think we need to treat diabetes as a whole and not just separate type 1 versus type 2. We’re here to help everyone. We’re here to prevent the disease. We’re here to manage the disease. That’s why we’re doing this. We’re doing it to support the 25.8 million people living with diabetes.
That’s what the ride’s all about. We have like with the Red Riders, we have a little thing. We say, “Go Red Rider,” when you see someone with that jersey. It’s about the courage that it takes to live with this disease and today is your day. You’re the hero of our event because you put on that smile day-by-day. This is the day that you can look forward to.
Dr. Lisa: Lisa, how do people find out about the Kennebunk’s Tour de Cure, any of the Tour de Cures associated with the Diabetes Association?
Lisa: You can see us on our website at diabetes.org/tour. You check the dropdown menu. We have five rides in New England. We have 87 rides throughout the nation. There’s something for everybody. I really hope everybody will join us. It’s going to be a fun day. I’m really excited. We’re expecting about 900 to 1,000 people. I hope I can see everyone there.
Dr. Lisa: Lisa, it has really been my pleasure to spend time with you talking today. We’ve been talking with Lisa Medina, who is the Kennebunk’s Tour de Cure Event Manager. Thank you for all the work you’re doing for diabetes.
Lisa: Thank you.