NOT DEAD YET - My Race Against Disease: From Diagnosis to Dominance

By Phil Southerland and John Hanc

Part memoir, part sports adventure, Not Dead Yet tells the inspirational story of Phil Southerland’s battle with Type 1 diabetes and how from diagnosis to sheer determination, Phil Southerland beat all odds and turned his diagnosis and his passion for cycling into a platform. From leading a Race Across America to now managing a world-class cycling program, his journey on and off the bike is changing the way the world views diabetes.

When Phil Southerland was seven-months-old, he lost ten pounds in a week, his body was limp and his breathing slowed to what his mother called a “death rattle.” Rushing him to the ER, she was informed that tiny Phil displayed the youngest case of diabetes on record in the world at that time.

Blindness, kidney failure and death were all predicted for him by age twenty-five. Twenty-nine years later, not only is Phil alive and well but as the founder of Team Type 1, he and his team of championship cyclists — many of them diabetics—have become health and fitness role models for people the world over.

Together, they have taken on some of the most challenging endurance events in the world, including winning the Race Across America—a grueling 3,000-mile endurance competition—twice. Today, Phil continues to lead Team Type 1 as its professional cycling team, among one of the top 30 teams in the world, races toward an invite to the world’s top cycling event, the Tour de France in 2012. Leading the pack is a serious challenge for any athlete, but for Phil and his teammates, it presents two daily battles: one to stay in razor-sharp race-fit condition, the other, to stay alive.

Not Dead Yet is Phil’s powerful story: his account of his relationship with his mother, and how she struggled to keep him alive; growing up quickly in the New-Old South of the 1990s, learning at the tender age of 6 years old how to check his glucose and give himself injections; of how he fulfilled his dream of becoming a professional athlete using his team and the bike as a platform, inspiring thousands of individuals and families around the world who are battling diabetes to not just chase, but catch, their dreams.

PHIL SOUTHERLAND

is the founder of Team Type 1, a team of championship bike racers. He and Team Type 1 have been profiled in numerous cycling and diabetes publications, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution. He lives in Atlanta, where Team Type 1 is based. Visit him online at www.teamtype1.org.

JOHN HANC

teaches writing and journalism at the New York Institute of Technology. He is a long time contributor to Newsday and a contributing editor to Runner’s World magazine, as well as the author of The Coolest Race on Earth. He lives with his wife and son in Farmingdale, New York.

“This book is a must read for all of us with type 1 diabetes and for our support team of family and friends as well. Phil Southerland's account of his battle with diabetes and triumph over it seeks to and succeeds at being an educational and inspirational guide for reaching the full potential that exists in all of us.”
– Show business legend and New York Times bestselling author of Growing Up Again Mary Tyler Moore

"Not Dead Yet is an uplifting and incredibly true adventure of a young man who beats the odds. Phil Southerland is an inspiration to those who live and struggle with diabetes as well as any individual who faces seemingly insurmountable challenges.”
–Steve Edelman, MD, University of California-San Diego, Founder and Director of Taking Control of Your Diabetes

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NOT DEAD YET

By Phil Southerland and John Hanc

BIOGRAPHY:

Phil Southerland

Phil Southerland is the founder and CEO of Team Type 1. A tireless global ambassador for diabetes, Southerland is committed to the education and empowerment of people with diabetes throughout the world. Diagnosed at just seven-months-old with Type 1 diabetes, doctors told his mother he would probably go blind, suffer organ failure, and likely not live past the age of 25. Now 29 and actively in control of his diabetes through diet, exercise and a disciplined insulin regimen, Southerland has turned what was once considered a death sentence into a global movement to positively affect the lives of people with diabetes through managed care and control of the disease. Today, a thought leader in diabetes and sports, the social entrepreneur is redefining boundaries for those living with diabetes.

An avid cyclist with a vision of using his bike as a tool for empowerment, Southerland merged his passion for the sport and his mission of raising awareness to establish Team Type 1 in 2005, creating the world’s first professional cycling team to include athletes with diabetes. Under his leadership, the dynamic squad rapidly grew into an enterprise of over 101 athletes from 11 countries, spanning the globe to inspire and unite people affected with diabetes. The team plans to race on the sports largest stage, the Tour de France, in 2012.

The groundbreaking organization is now a global enterprise comprised of seven competitive squads of athletes, including the 21-member professional men's team racing, which is supported by one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, sanofi-aventis. As partners with a shared 360 degree view of diabetes, Team Type 1 and sanofi-aventis are redefining the possibilities of a better quality of life for diabetics through managed control and appropriate diet, exercise, treatment and technology.

Most recently, Southerland sought the services of two of the word’s leading endocrinologists, Dr. Juan P. Frias and Dr. Bruce Bode, to develop and launch a diabetes research platform. With their help, he has established the TT1 Diabetes Sports Research Institute to evaluate diabetic athletic performance and examine disease management and its control in high-level competition.

Southerland also spearheaded Team Type 1’s 2010 alliance with the International Diabetes Federation to bring donated supplies to children with Type 1 diabetes in Rwanda. Last November, as Team Type 1 raced in the Tour of Rwanda, he presented the Rwanda Diabetes Association with more than 35,000 test strips and 400 blood glucose meters, all donated by fans and supporters of Team Type 1. Southerland and Team Type 1 will be returning to Rwanda throughout the year to deliver additional supplies with the goal of delivering 900,000 test strips to the country by year-end.

Rwanda represents a first step in Southerland’s ultimate quest to develop a sustainable scalable platform to ensure all children with diabetes have access to tools they need to manage and control their disease. This is part of what motivates him to spend over 250 days on the road each year to spread the Team Type 1 message to thought leaders, decision makers, scientists, doctors and patients around the world.

Southerland’s latest venture, a memoir titled Not Dead Yet released in May of 2011. The book chronicles his life from an early diagnosis of diabetes and doctors’ predictions of death by the age of 25 to his life as a professional cyclist and his mission to change the face of diabetes on a global scale.