The Story that led to the mission. . .

In the early-morning of December 14th, 2021, Donna Austin picked up the phone undoubtedly expecting to hear the first “Happy Birthday!” on her special day. Instead, she had to confront the horrible news that every family prays will never land on them; her son, Daniel “Danny” Raymond Mayer, passed away in his sleep without warning. Our healthy and vibrant brother, uncle, nephew, grandson and friend to so many people died from a quiet and silent killer that we’ve only come to learn over the following weeks and months has affected so many others. Since his death, we’ve also learned that there is a community of families who’ve suffered the loss of loved ones working to manage the high’s and low’s of diabetes.

Our family would prefer to not have reason for a cause, our family would prefer to not have reason for this foundation. Our family would have preferred to understand the true risks to all Type 1 diabetics so that we would could have taken action and still have Danny here with us today. The sense of loss and heartbreak has been overwhelming, and ultimately, we decided that we needed to channel this grief into good by preventing other families from suffering this needless outcome. These deaths are preventable.

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Danny was 26 when he was diagnosed with delayed onset Type 1 diabetes.  Nobody in the family truly understood the risks of the disease. Along with the rest of us, Danny assumed that he could regulate his blood sugar up and down by managing his insulin and sugar intake. While he had heard of the potential serious consequences of imbalanced blood sugar, he had little understanding of the symptoms he would encounter that would signal he was entering this danger zone.

Danny was an active and dynamic young adult with so many interests and passions from pottery to skydiving, but billiards may have been at the top of that list. Our family has named our foundation PumpsOnCue.org in honor of Danny’s legacy. Our goal is to provide people working to manage diabetes with tools and resources that allow them to master the high’s and low’s of this disease.

If our family had a better understanding of the risks of the disease and specifically the red flags of Danny’s situation, we would have been more pro-active to ensure a level of communication and monitoring that would have kept him with us.  The simple act of education and awareness, even for young, otherwise healthy individuals and their families and friends, can be the difference between tragedy and a long happy life.  We want to be a vehicle for helping to make that difference.

Throughout our website, you will see numerous references to the “Starfish story”. While there may be countless starfish stranded on the beach and in peril, our goal is to save one “starfish” at a time. Any family who suffers loss will understand that, if it is your family member, saving that one starfish made all the difference.