Laurie’s Fight

As a veterinarian, Laurie Hess knew more than most people about diabetes – in pets. An estimated one in 200 cats and dogs are diagnosed with diabetes, with as many as 20 percent of those suffering from type 1 and requiring insulin injections to stay alive. That’s almost double the type 1 rate in the human population. All of that knowledge did nothing to prepare Laurie, however, for her own diagnosis three years ago with type 1 diabetes.

Up until that time, she had been living her dreams. From the age of 15, she had wanted to become a vet. After graduating from Yale University and Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, she had gone on to become the head of the Avian and Exotic Pet Service at the Animal Medical Center in Manhattan. She is one of only 100 vets certified by the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners as an avian care expert in the entire country. She married a great guy, Peter Mozarsky, and had two healthy sons, Bret (now 8) and Luke (now 5). At the age of 38 she went back to working out in her favorite sport, gymnastics.

Laurie had developed gestational diabetes while she was pregnant with Luke, so over the next two years she continued to maintain a low-carb diet and regularly have her blood glucose checked. Everything appeared normal, but her friends and family became alarmed as she lost more and more weight and was exhausted all the time. After numerous misdiagnoses, at the suggestion of her gynecologist she finally saw an endocrinologist who delivered the news that she had type 1 diabetes.

Along with the strain of balancing constant blood testing, carb counting and insulin injections with being a working mother and wife, Laurie said she was dealing with a lot of anger at finding out she had what she considered a “children’s illness” decades later than one normally gets such a diagnosis. Her advice to others who find themselves in a similar situation? “Find someone to talk to about it.” She credits a licensed clinical psychologist that she discovered online, Dr. Beverly Adler (www.askdrbev.com), with helping her to adjust to life with diabetes.

And she has more than adjusted to it. After resisting for a year, Laurie got an insulin pump and a continuous glucose monitor, and neither has slowed her down in the slightest. She travels constantly between three veterinary offices in Dutchess, Rockland and Westchester, treating birds, reptiles, rodents and every other type of exotic pet. You’ll find her on a elliptical trainer every morning, with a personal trainer two to four times a week, and depending on the season, she’s at World Cup Gymnastics in Chappaqua between two and seven days a week. She has competed in the Masters Division of the Empire State Games in each of the last three years, coming away with an incredible 14 gymnastics medals.

What does she do in her free time? She spends it helping to find a cure for diabetes, of course. Last month, she created and ran the first-ever “Dog Walk for a Cure” as part of the JDRF Westchester Walk to Cure Diabetes, where more than 40 dogs and their owners came out to help raise more than $650,000 for diabetes research. In March 2007, Laurie also organized the largest Cocktails for a Cure party ever thrown in Westchester. Items donated that night brought in thousands of dollars in the auctions at the JDRF Westchester Imagination Ball in April. The best part of the party? Getting to meet Dr. Beverly Adler for the first time in person. According to Laurie, “She changed my life.” Undoubtedly, the inspiration Laurie Hess provides will do the same for countless other children and adults facing life with type 1 diabetes as well.