Kelli Raleigh is a personal friend of mine whom I’ve deeply admired as long as I’ve known her. She’s inspirational, fun, and has a deep love for the village of people she surrounds herself with. Kelli also has a chronic illness, and has been a single mom for most of her eight year old daughter Ruby’s life.
We can all agree that mom-ing is hard for everyone, but I keep trying to imagine what the added layer of a potentially life threatening illness AND being a single mom must be like for a woman, and it makes me admire Kelli even more.She’s sharing stories about making the decision to be a single mom, parenting a gifted child, and facts about her illness, Type 1 Diabetes and what she’s doing to advocate and fight against it.
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Kelli is a mom, advocate for people living with Chronic Diseases,, type 1 diabetes community leader, and full-time Community Engagement Manager for the non-profit organization, JDRF. Kelli offers a unique perspective on mom life as single mom, and also as a mother who lives with a chronic illness raising a child. You can read more of her backstory HERE.
Kelli works diligently within the Type 1 diabetes community to increase awareness, advocacy and support for the millions of people diagnosed with the disease. Kelli’s daughter is exceptionally gifted and she provides an honest, sometimes hilarious narrative on what it’s like mothering a daughter who is 8 going on 28. She lives in Denver, CO with her Fiance, Bart and their 3 girls and enjoys everything Colorado has to offer from the 350 days a year of sunshine to the romance of the snowy mountains.
First and foremost, Kelli says she’s a mom to a beautiful, talented, intellectually gifted eight-year old, Ruby. She’s a professional fundraiser for JDRF, a nonprofit, and she’s been a single mom for most of Ruby’s life, until recently when she just got engaged! There are so many moving pieces to Kelli’s life.
SINGLE MOM LIFE
Ruby was born in 2010, and even then Kelli knew that her husband at the time was not a good situation for Kelli or Ruby. Kelli stayed because she thought that’s what she was “supposed” to do. When Ruby turned 2, Kelli knew that she needed to choose to show her daughter what love looks like and what her mom could look like when she had the freedom to be herself and not a scared, timid person.
By the time Ruby was 3, Kelli chose the life of a single mom
For a long time, Kelli told herself she wouldn’t be able to do this alone, and that she wouldn’t be capable of raising a daughter on her own. She was afraid of what everyone might think. They didn’t know about the abuse or the alcohol addiction her husband had. She didn’t even want to “crack the egg open” and show people what was really going on. It was scary at first, because Kelli lives with an autoimmune disease, Type 1 Diabetes, and she wondered how she would be able to pay for her healthcare on her own, work full time, and raise a daughter.
The first few months of going at it alone, she had to find her voice and herself, and that involved repeating that anything would be a healthier choice than going back to her old life. She ended up back in Colorado, where she would have a steady job, support.
It was challenging having a gifted three year old whom you really had to talk through and explain things. The conversation always included reason and metaphors! Kelli had to explain what Type 1 Diabetes is to Ruby, and she taught her what to do if something went wrong. Kelli never wanted to be the person to speak negatively about Ruby’s dad, so they always talked about being strong, healthy girls out on their own.
When Ruby started school, she started to have questions and wondered why her dad wasn’t around. Kelli went with Ruby to every ‘dad’ event, all the while explaining that every family looks different. Even if a family looks like one thing on the outside, everyone has different stories happening on the inside. Just because they’re a mom and daughter doesn’t mean there is any less love.
LIVING WITH A CHRONIC ILLNESS
Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is an auto-immune disease. Someone with T1D’s body attacks their insulin producing cells, so their body cannot turn food into energy. One can be diagnosed at any age; younger or older, and they must take insulin essentially to stay alive. There is no specific cause or prevention for T1D. It’s not a metabolic disease, and can often be confused with Type 2 Diabetes, although they are not related.
In a healthy body that makes insulin, no matter what food you eat there is always enough insulin to use that food as energy. Your body can always regulate it. In a person with T1D, they don’t have that ability. If they eat too much food or go too long without insulin, their blood sugars can raise and it’s literally like syrup pumping through their veins. It can be very toxic and become deadly very fast. If their blood sugars become too low, it’s like the car’s out of gas and there isn’t enough sugar or energy to pump through the body. This results in passing out, seizures or comas.
It’s imperative for Kelli that someone is alerted if something is wrong; especially living alone. Fortunately, she has systems with alarms that alert her when her sugars get too low or too high, but she also has to teach Ruby what to do if an alarm ever beeps.
WORKING FOR JDRF
Kelli works full time as an advocate and professional fundraiser for JDRF, an organization that funds research for a cure for T1D.
How do you do it??
Kelli says it looks like community. Everywhere she’s lived, she’s had people she can lean on. She finds a tribe of people who will help out with Ruby, pick her up from school, who will be patient with Kelli when she can’t always make the social gatherings. She says Ruby’s early years were kind of a blur, but she was able to survive! She attributes this to so much help from friends and family, near and far.
Kelli also includes Ruby in her work. Although T1D isn’t completely genetic, there is a genetic component to it, and Kelli has been very honest with Ruby that they’re both fighting for a world where Ruby doesn’t have to worry about having the same illness that her mom does.
Kelli is teaching Ruby to help serve people and to be involved in your community. In a lot of ways, the T1D community has raised Ruby. Kelli hopes that as she grows, she feels emboldened to pursue helping people and fighting for a cause she believes in.
SUPPORTING MOMS WITH A CHRONIC ILLNESS
It’s important to know that 1 in every 5 adults has some kind of chronic illness. Whatever that illness looks like, finding your tribe is vital. Find people that understand what it’s like to live day to day. In some ways, living with a chronic illness isn’t unlike raising several kids with a husband who travels a lot. Understand that it’s important to ask for help, and that we need to be gentle with ourselves.
We are all moms who are trying our darnedest!
It’s important to remember that the person you know with a chronic illness might be the only person at school, at work, in their community fighting this battle. It’s important to have community and not to deal with your illness by yourself!
If you’d like to know more about Type 1 Diabetes and how you can help and support people like Kelli, visit the show notes at supermompodcast.com for more information. I hope you learned something new today, and I can’t wait to see you soon!