Diabetes Activist Strolls In County
Trek Around Country Designed To Raise Awareness
posted 12/27/02
By Jane Hulse
For Andy Mandell, there was no turkey on Christmas Day. No pumpkin pie. No
lazing around with family in the comfort of home.
He was on the rooad striding his usual 10 to 15 miles. His only nod to the
holiday was the bright red pants he wore, catching looks from curious motorists
on State Street.
Mr. Mandell, 57, is walking around -- not across -- the country in an effort to
increase awareness about diabetes, which he calls a "nasty" disease that has
reached "epidemic proportions."
He should know. He was a marathon runner and a black belt in karate when he
turned 40 and learned he had type 2, or "adult-onset," diabetes.
Five years later, in 1990, he established the Defeat Diabetes Foundation,
determined that he and others could beat the disease. Then, last Jan. 15,
he set out from Pensacola, Fla., on a 10,000-mile walk around the perimeter of
the United States. His goal: "To make as much noise as I can about this
insidious disease."
On Oct. 11 he walked into San Diego, then began the trek north
through California to Seattle. He arrived in Santa Barbara County on Christmas
Eve, traveling with his assistant, Bob Brooks, who drives a 37-foot that doubles
as an office and sleeping quarters. Mr. Mandell, who stands 6 feet 4 inches,
walks at a pace of 3 to 31/2mph, maintaining about a 30-inch stride.
He figures he will have taken about 20 million steps by the time he reaches the
East Coast again in two or three years. It's a meaningful number: By his
estimates, 20 million Americans have diabetes, and half of them don't know it
yet. He was among the uninformed until it was almost too late. It was his
mother's nagging that finally led him to have physical after he turned 40. He
and his doctors managed the disease until the mid-1990s when he
spiraled down.
"I was in bed for two years," he recalled. He was suffering from severe diabetic
neuropathy, characterized by numbness, tingling and excruciating pain. Even the
touch of the bed covers was too much. "The doctors reversed it," he said, and he
has been taking insulin for three or four years. "I'm a pin cushion." He injects
himself four to five times a day. The fact that he can walk at all is stunning;
he had to learn all over again, he said. His legs are constantly numb and he
feels "pins and needles" in his feet with every step.
It would have been easy to take Christmas off and hunker down in the RV at the
campground where the pair stayed the night before. But he's not that kind of
guy. "Diabetes doesn't take a holiday," he insisted as he gushed with data about
the disease and his mission to help people get diagnosed early.
As he walks, he hands out information -- a list of warning
signs, even self-screening test -- and alerts people to his Web site, www.defeatdiabetes.org,
which has a Spanish language option.
Before diabetes entered his life, he owned a martial arts studio and
also designed educational games and toys. Now the disease is his passion. It
seems nothing can stop him on his odyssey. He faced down a wild boar in Florida,
narrowly missed stepping on a snake in New Mexico and, also in New Mexico,
resorted to pepper spray and a stun gun to fend off wild dogs. "We were
nose-to-nose," he said.
On the road he listens to the radio or his music and chats with Mr. Brooks by
walkie-talkie. Boredom is not a problem. "I have solved every one of the world's
problems," he joked. "Then I go back and solve them again."
Source: Santa Barbara News-Press.
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