MILLSTONE — In honor of her teenage daughter, Virginia, Lisa Arpaia of Millstone Township plans to race in the Tour de Cure to support the American Diabetes Association (ADA) on June 14. As she prepares for the race, Arpaia wants to raise awareness so others will join the bike race or walk to help raise donations.
Arpaia said Virginia, 13, has had juvenile diabetes for seven years. Coincidentally, Arpaia is a breast cancer survivor who was diagnosed with that disease during the same week her daughter learned she has diabetes.
“Two days after trying to digest that I had cancer, my daughter was fighting for her life in the hospital, a month shy of her seventh birthday,” Arpaia said. “She was newly diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. All I remember was praying that God help us through this, and I could not to think of my life without her. Not knowing my own fate, well, that is where I found my strength.
Arpaia sought to raise awareness and funds to cure diabetes, so she joined Team Red of Princeton for the ADA. The team members are waiting to learn exactly where their course will be in central New Jersey.
Team Red has 30 members, and their goal is to raise $30,000 for the ADA. Arpaia’s personal goal is to raise 10 percent of her team’s total. She said the Tour de Cure offers participants a choice of bicycle courses and walking courses to allow “everyone to comfortably participate in a really good cause.”
Arpaia is also planning to participate in the Atlantic City Half Iron on June 28. That event will consist of a 1.2-mile ocean swim, a 56.3-mile bicycle ride and a 13.1-mile run.
She has been training more than 12 hours a week; biking between 25 and 50 miles per week and working out at Work Out World in Robbinsville.
Arpaia and her husband, Tony, have lived in Millstone for 15 years. Their son, Michael, 23, lives in San Francisco and works for Facebook. Their daughters are Virginia and Antonia, 12.
Arpaia said her family is very supportive of her athletic endeavors.
“Whenever my girls come to one of my races, they make big signs to encourage me,” she said. “I am so grateful. I know it will be a long day for them just hanging around to get a glimpse of me speeding by, but I do it all for them. I want to stay young, healthy and be engaged in their lives.”
As for living with diabetes, Virginia has learned it entails testing her blood sugar level by pricking her finger six times a day, and knowing the carbohydrate content of all the food she consumes before she eats, according to her mother.
“Virginia wears an insulin pump, so she is constantly receiving insulin,” Arpaia said. “It’s kind of like having a computerized external pancreas. Virginia is very healthy, smart, beautiful, and she does very well in school. She is a gymnast who has been competing in many competitions over the past couple of years. I have always said Virginia is the sweetest girl in the world, made of pure sugar, so sweet her pancreas couldn’t handle it, and she developed diabetes. If you meet her, you would say the same.”