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Diabetes can be a devastating disease, causing multiple degenerative conditions over the course of a person's life. Juvenile diabetes can be especially difficult because it strikes children. To live for 80 years with diabetes is a triumph that could only result from dedicated self-discipline, determination, and tenacity. These very qualities allowed James W. Quander, the author of this educational and inspirational autobiography, to live a full life into his 80s in spite of a prognosis to die before age 10.

Diagnosed in 1924 with diabetes shortly before turning 6 in a time when insulin injections were new, there was a stigma to have this disease. He kept his "Big Secret" until in his senior years in spite of hospitalizations, health emergencies, and near-death experiences. Then in an effort to educate others about living with diabetes, he often participated in personal and media interviews, and was featured in the Washington Post, Diabetes Forecast, Successful Living with Diabetes, and the Diabetic News.

James W. Quander, a trailblazer in education and career, worked for the U.S. federal government for 33 years as an economist, statistician, computer programmer, and manpower labor specialist. In 1971, he was ordained as one of the first of 16 Permanent Deacons in the Roman Catholic Church; and in September 1975, he served as sole assistant to Pope Paul VI in celebrating a daily mass. He was also active in tracing the history of the Quander family, one of the ol...