A family affair

Battling diabetes is far less difficult when you don’t have to do it alone. Many families with more than one member living with diabetes are banding together and becoming closer in the process.

Marc Onigman and his wife, Maureen, were waiting for a flight to Ireland at Boston’s Logan Airport when Marc looked up at the departure board and found he couldn’t read it. His vision was too blurry. “My dad had diabetes, so I knew that blurred vision couldn’t be good,” he says. He and Maureen took their bags off the plane, and Marc went to the doctor.

He blames himself for his diabetes. “It’s my fault,” says the 57-year-old businessman. Overweight since sixth grade, Marc had dieted off and on for years but always regained what he lost. He had exercised—off and on—too, but that never lasted long either.

A dramatic change
Marc was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 1999 and has been on medication to control his blood sugar ever since. But he’s still overweight and until recently hadn’t been getting the exercise he knows he needs. Still, things have changed in the Onigman family since that day at the airport. In 2000, his daughter Julie, now 31, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and the next year his son Michael, now 33, learned that he, too, has type 1. The Onigmans’ other son, David, now 26, is unaffected.

There is a strong family history: Marc’s grandmother, his father, and Maureen’s grandmother all had the disease.

Because their diabetes is insulin dependent, both Julie and Michael require daily injections. “This has brought us closer together,” says Julie. “I’ve been able to help Michael and answer his questions.” Julie checks her blood sugar four to six times daily and injects insulin four times a day. She’s considering an insulin pump—a device that delivers insulin 24 hours a day. The pump itself, about the size of a beeper, is attached to a waistband or other article of clothing. Michael already has one, so now he can answer Julie’s questions about the device.

Walking the walk
Julie, a systems administrator for a consulting company in the Boston area, has been the driving force behind the family’s efforts to raise money for diabetes research. Six years ago, she joined the annual American Diabetes Association fund-raising walk, Step Out to Fight Diabetes (formerly America’s Walk for Diabetes) and began urging others to join her. “There are now about 30 of us, my father, my brothers, three uncles, two cousins, and friends,” says Julie. “Last year, we raised about $20,000 and were the No. 1 team in the Northeast for the second year in a row.” Her mom, Maureen, hasn’t joined the walk because someone has to stay at home preparing for the party the Onigmans throw afterward. In addition to the walk, David, who leads a band called AM Dial, organizes an annual benefit concert for diabetes at the Hatch Shell, an outdoor stage on the south bank of the Charles River. Julie, a singer, performs with the band.

As for their dad, Marc is determined to lose weight so he can get off his medication and manage his diabetes better with diet and exercise. He is now eating six small, healthy meals a day and trying to exercise more. His resolution coincided with the birth of Michael’s son, Kieran, and the New Year. “I realized that if I continued as I was, I wasn’t going to see this kid grow up,” he says. “And I want to.”