I’ll be getting up early come Saturday morning. I have to be at Keeneland before 7:30 a.m. where I will join grandson, Tyler Kane Ochs, his big brother, Braden and their parents, Jennifer and Kevin Ochs along with 10 or so other folks from Richmond to register Team TKO.

Daughter Jennifer is captain and organizer of our team that will be gathering donations and joining more than 130,000 walkers across the country in this year’s Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes.

Many, if not most of you readers already know that my son Christopher and I are diabetics. Most of you probably don’t know that my 3-year-old grandson, Tyler, is also afflicted with this terrible disease.

It’s easy enough for Chris and I to cope, mostly because we are adults. Chris does have to take daily insulin injections. I control mine with oral Metformin and by simply not eating or drinking anything that contains processed sugar.

Tyler, on the other hand, is not quite sure why he has to undergo at least six blood tests every day nor why his mommy has to write down every single thing he ingests and how much of it so that she can count carbohydrates to gauge how much insulin he needs after every meal and snack.

Try explaining that to a three-year-old along with why he can’t have what everybody else is eating and why he has to wear an insulin pump 24/7.

So I’m asking for your help. By making a donation on behalf of Team TKO to the American Diabetes Association you will be helping provided community education programs, protect the rights of people with disabilities and funding critical research for a cure. You will also be helping fund the development of products and devices that make treatment easier, more affordable and less painful which is especially important to kids like Tyler who is not only my grandson but my personal hero as well.

Why help us stop diabetes? There are 25.8 million Americans currently living with diabetes, a disease that is outpacing heart disease, cancer and AIDS. If we don’t act now, one in every three children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetimes.

I believe that my participation in this year’s Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes can and will make a difference. With your help, the Association can raise over $20 million to help stop diabetes on Saturday.

My personal goal is to hit two miles. I actually wobble more than walk due to Parkinson’s Disease and the lingering effects of the stroke I had 10 weeks ago, but I intend to be holding Tyler’s hand or helping carry him come rain or shine as we stroll around Keeneland on Saturday morning.

The easiest and most convenient way to help Team TKO reach its goal of $1,500 in outside donations is to go to: www.diabetes.org/stepout and make a secure, 100 percent tax deductible donation. On the web page, click donate and enter Team TKO. If you do not want to donate online, make your check payable to: American Diabetes Association, put Team TKO on the memo line and mail it to me: Ike Adams, 249 Charlie Brown Road, Paint Lick, KY 40461.

You can help stop diabetes, one step, or in my case, one wobble at a time.