By Pam Walatka

Tavia Norheim, diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes five years ago, will be one of the walkers in Sunday’s Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Walk to Cure. She will lead a team called Tavia’s Terminators.

“It’s a daily, lifelong struggle,” said Tavia Norheim, a freshman at Los Altos High School, diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes five years ago. “This disease doesn’t get better, or ever go away.”

Tavia, the 14-year-old daughter of Joan Sherlock and stepdaughter of Los Altos Hills Mayor Breene Kerr, will be part of a team called Tavia’s Terminators when the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation holds its annual “Walk to Cure” Sunday at Shoreline Park in Mountain View.

She and her family will join some 10,000 supporters representing local corporations, families, schools and other organizations in the Greater Bay Area.

The disease is life-threatening. Every three minutes an American dies of diabetes and its complications. This costly chronic disease strikes children suddenly, making them insulin-dependent for life and susceptible to other health consequences. Some 14 million Americans have a personal connection to diabetes.

“The daily regimen of finger pricks and injections of insulin, combined with the constant dread of complications, are burdens that no child should have to suffer,” said actor Kevin Kline, national chairman of the walk.

Tavia once added up all the times she’s pricked herself to test her blood since she was diagnosed and discovered it was 8,300 times. She wears a small pump that delivers insulin to her body throughout the day through a small tube.

“Along with wearing my pump all the time, I have to test my blood sugar six or more times a day,” she said. “Along with this, I have to figure out how many carbohydrates are in everything I eat and decide how much insulin to give for it.”

If her blood sugar gets too high, she becomes ill and can risk organ damage. “If my blood sugar gets too low I have seizures and once started going into a coma,” she said.

Jim Horalek, regional manager of Cisco Systems Inc., joined the research foundation’s Greater Bay Area Chapter’s executive board as president this year. Last year, he said, the chapter contributed more than $10 million toward research to find a cure for the disease.

“By working together in fund-raising events like our walks, we do make a difference,” he said.

For more information, visit www.jdrf.org/greaterbay or call 415-977-0360.

Support Tavia and other walkers at www.-walk.jdrf.org.