SAN ANTONIO — When you are given a type-1 diabetes diagnosis, it is for life. It is unlike type-2 diabetes where there is a cure.
Meet Hays Gray. He's like any other 9-year old who plays the piano and likes baseball, just with a twist of type-1 diabetes.
Hays Gray told us, "When we first started it was hard to keep track of everything."
His mother Jolie says he was diagnosed at the age of five. She added, "They didn't want to do that initial finger prick that we asked for. They wanted to tell me it was a phase and I knew my kid I knew it was I knew something else was going on."
He's had to learn a lot to manage his diabetes. Jolie told us, "He does a lot of things that a lot of nine-year-olds couldn't even imagine. He does a lot on his own independently. He follows his alerts. He wears an Apple Watch. I wear an Apple Watch so we get the alerts quickly." Hays added, "We've learned a lot about what to do when I'm high and low and how many carbs to give me."
But, he doesn't let type-1 slow him down and is part of the annual Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation One Walk. Hays said, "To raise money to find a cure. It was actually yesterday."
This junior ambassador for the organization raised over $10,000 for diabetes research. Hays said, "Yesterday there was a top 10, people who raised money over $10,000 and I was number 10."
He's also an established author at the age of nine. He started writing "Hays Type One-derful Journey" when he was just five. Hays told us, "I wrote it so that other kids that were just diagnosed could not be afraid and for other kids that don't have type-1 to understand it more."
He's even had a book signing. "He wanted something other kids could relate to, especially at a new diagnosis time and onset of something new and a little bit scary, so I love that he got all that out on paper and now it's a book," said Jolie.
To check out the book click here: http://www.haysplays.com
To check out the Hays family blog click here: Thegraymatters.com