FEATURE EDITION
TOUCHED BY TYPE 1 ELIZABETH FORREST
Healthcare Advocate Fulfilling Dream of Helping Youth With Type 1 Diabetes by TERESA SCHIFFER
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t can be overwhelming for both the parents and the child when a child is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Careful monitoring of the diet and signs of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) become a primary daily concern, and the child is thrust into a world of frequent injections and potentially life-threatening symptoms. It’s difficult to envision the amount of stress the diagnosis can cause a family. For one Central Florida woman, that stress drove her to organize a nonprofit to raise awareness of and assistance for others affected by type 1 diabetes. Central Florida community healthcare advocate Elizabeth Forrest was just 10 years old when she was diagnosed in 1999. She recalls her initial reaction to the diagnosis, and how it ultimately affected her, saying, “When I was 10 years old and diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, I was a very shy child, so to add on this diagnosis, at first, made me even more reserved and shy. But fast-forward quite a bit, and it became a platform for me. At first, it was definitely very negatively impactful.” In the beginning, she needed insulin injections several times per day. Like many people, Forrest was scared of needles, so her parents administered the injections for her, visiting her during the school days throughout the rest of her elementary and middle school years. Eventually, she was given an insulin pump that delivers insulin periodically through a thin plastic tube from a reservoir that is
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carried in a pocket, on a belt or attached to the skin with adhesive. A summer visit to Camp Adam Fisher in South Carolina, a camp established in 1968 specifically for diabetic children, helped Forrest learn to cope with her condition in a supportive, educational environment while surrounded by her peers. The experience inspired her to become a voice for young people living with type 1 diabetes through social outreach programs. This was the genesis of what would become the Touched by Type 1 foundation. Before it became Touched by Type 1, Forrest’s outreach effort was a dance program called Dancing for Diabetes that she instituted for diabetic kids in Central Florida. It all started out with a dance recital fundraiser that Forrest put on in middle school with the help of her dance teacher Holley Ricker and encouragement from the administrators at Millennium Middle School in Seminole County. It was a small show that raised money to donate to local diabetes organizations. From that grew the free, weekly dance program, Dancing for Diabetes. By 2013, Forrest was offering not only the dance program, but outreach events, bowling events, golf tournaments, conferences, and support groups, so it was time to formalize her project as a 501(c)(3). In 2020, she rebranded the organization from Dancing for Diabetes to Touched by Type 1. centralfloridahealthnews.com
