George Canyon sang over the sound of planes taking off in a hangar at the Halifax International Airport yesterday.
Kids wearing face paint and cowboy hats sat with their parents and watched the country music singer from Pictou County croon.
Halifax was the second last stop in Canyon’s acoustic The Sky’s Not The Limit tour that has him flying across the country promoting his message that kids with Type 1 diabetes can achieve their dreams.
The Juno award winner was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was 14.
For Canyon, the hardest part about finding out he had diabetes was that, “they told me I couldn’t fly airplanes, I couldn’t be in the air force. That was my dream, so all of a sudden life as I knew it was over.”
Since then, however, he has become a pilot and an honorary colonel in the Canadian Forces.
“If they can control their diabetes they can live their dreams,” Canyon told Metro Halifax yesterday. He stressed that treating diabetes is not just physical, but also physiological.
“For kids, being different is hard, and sometimes that means they don’t take care of their condition as they should,” Canyon said. “Once they see they can live a normal life and can live their dreams, they go back to controlling their diabetes because they have a goal to work towards.”
Lynn Ruiter’s daughter, Lydia, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes two years ago.
“It’s like having a colic baby,” Ruiter said, referring to her daughter’s nightly 3 a.m. blood sugar checks. “We didn’t get a lot of sleep in the beginning, for sure.”
“When I want to have something to eat, I can’t really have it,” sad nine-year-old Lydia.
She can only eat vegetables between her scheduled mealtimes and snack times.
For more information go to www.georgecanyon.com/theskysnotthelimit.
