Svati Narula

My dear daughter Svati, living with type 1 for 25 yrs. now is a good example of someone who took lemons and turned them into lemonade. From the time she was diagnosed at age 9, she was very involved with diabetes advocacy up on Capitol Hill with what was then JDRF. She had a great circle of other type 1 friends through those associations and from attending diabetes camps for several yrs. She also helped me, her mom, a nurse and CDE, with our family support groups for families having a child with type one. Then, in high school she had a blog on Health Central about type one and also wrote articles about living with it and became involved in the diabetes online community. She has volunteered for several t1d drug and med tech clinical trials over the years and helped diabetes tech companies move forward to produce products such as today’s Gvoke pen, the Inpen Smart Insulin pen, BetaBionic’s ILet pump, as well as being the first known Dexcom user up at Everest Base Camp. Because of having type 1 and also through involvement with the now-defunct InsulINdependence nonprofit group , she became an athlete and outdoor enthusiast who learned how to work in sync with her body and fine tune her blood sugars for her running and competing to the best of her ability.

She became a writer credited with an impressive list of articles who is about to publish her first book.

And yes, I am a proud mom and I look forward to presenting her with her well-deserved Journey Award on her upcoming 34th birthday!🎉 Thanks to the Team at Lilly – and at CWD who has been so supportive of the T1d community all these years – I am grateful!☺️