Adriana Plevniak, a member of our Lay Advisory Committee who has lived with type 1 diabetes for 36 years and navigating diabetic retinopathy for over a decade, opened the Symposium. She told us about her personal experience with DRD. She said: “Diabetic eye disease has taken so much from me, but today I stand here bleed-free, proof of what innovation and collaboration can achieve.” She went on to say, “Mary spoke so eloquently about her experience with DRD. She expressed that diabetic eye disease had stolen dance—her joy—from her. Joy comes in many shapes and forms, and losing one of our senses dramatically changes how we experience the world and takes away some of our joy.”
Listen to more of Adriana’s story at the 16:00 mark below:
