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Hundreds step out to stop diabetes

The American Diabetes Association hosted its annual Step Out Walk to stop diabetes Saturday. Hundreds of families walking around Palm Desert Civic Center Park. For the Machado family the disease hits close to home, impacting 5-year-old Ronnie.

“It changed everything about it, really. Just always having to be on top his blood sugar,” said Ronnie’s dad Stephen Machado.

The family made it a point to be at the Step Out Walk with hundreds of other families dealing with the disease.

“It makes us feel like everyone is our family. It’s a different level of understanding when someone is living with the illness or taking care of someone with the illness,” said Ronnie’s mom Vanessa Machado.

The goal: raise awareness and money in order to fight diabetes.

“Trying to raise $120,000 is our goal for this event. But it’s also an awareness event. So not only are we fundraising but we have educational materials about prevention,” development manager Molly Soliman said.

She said it’s a disease affecting more people than we might think.

“30 million Americans have diabetes and there’s about 86 million who have pre-diabetes and a lot of people don’t know about it and people who have it don’t know they have it,” Soliman said.

That is why it’s important to get accurate information about your health. Thanks to modern technology and medicine, as well as a positive outlook the future looks bright for Ronnie

“Because of his pump and Dexcom we can be away at work or anywhere and see what his blood sugars are throughout the day. He did pretty good with his first soccer season and we’re hoping he can join many other sports and continue school full time,” Vanessa Machado said.

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