Jay Cutler, former quarterback for the Vanderbilt Commodores and current quarterback for the Chicago Bears, speaks out about his current struggle with Type I Diabetes in an ongoing series of webisodes called "Touchdowns for Diabetes" aimed at educating and uplifting children about living with the disease.
November is American Diabetes Month, and Cutler is using his videos to spotlight the sudden 33-pound weight loss and chronic fatigue that alerted him to a potential health condition.
“It’s a life-changing time,” Cutler said in one of his videos, describing the period of time around his initial diagnosis. Although living with the disease is tough, he said finding out he had diabetes was a relief because he was able to learn to live and adapt to the limitations of the condition and go back to playing football.
In the videos, Cutler credits his Vanderbilt quarterback coach, Jimmy Kiser, who was also diagnosed with Type I diabetes at twenty-seven, as the person who gave him the best and most immediate advice.
“The first thing he said was everything’s going to be fine, you’re going to be able to keep playing football, you’re going to be able to do everything you want to do.”
“I’d love to use my story to be able to inspire kids who get diabetes at four, five and six years old and they think it’s the end of the world and they think they can’t have dreams and they think they can’t do what they want to do in life and that’s entirely false,” Cutler said.
