Canyon talks to students about diabetes

Lyons Brook - George Canyon stood on the stage at West Pictou Consolidated, his trusty cowboy hat perched on his head.
"Who here has diabetes?" he asked, peering out at the students and teachers that filled the gymnasium. "One, two, three…lots of you."
Canyon could have raised his hand as well. He's a Type I diabetic since he was 14 years old, when he was attending West Pictou District High School, and needed to take up to five needles of insulin a day just to stay alive.
"I didn't like needles very much," he told the kids with a chuckle, who loudly agreed that they didn't, either.
Nowadays, most Type I diabetics instead use insulin pumps, including Canyon. He now uses a device not yet available in Canada, which he's using as part of a trial.
"When I take my blood sugar, it basically beams the reading to the insulin pump, they talk back and forth," Canyon said. "They're wireless and it makes it a lot easier."
Canyon is on a whirlwind trip home to Pictou County to record a Christmas album with Dave Gunning, his fellow West Pictou alum and good friend. But he made a quick stop at West Pictou Consolidated Friday to lend his support to this weekend's Walk to Cure Diabetes.
"Because of kids like you and everybody trying to raise money for diabetes research, the treatment of diabetes is getting better and better, and someday, we're going to cure it," he said.
The diabetes walk and run will be held on Sunday, rain or shine, on the Jitney Trail in Pictou.
Registration for the five- and 10-kilometer fun runs will open at 8:30 am at the deCoste Center on Water Street in Pictou.
Registration for walkers begins at 11:30 a.m. The walk begins at 1 p.m. and winds down the Jitney Trail to Brown's Point and back for a total of five kms.