I had intended to write a post tonight about the challenges of managing work events that feature great food and wine combined with schmoozing and wearing a dress that makes it tough to get to my pump.  But I decided, instead, to use World Diabetes Day to write about the things in my life that I'm grateful for but that I wouldn't have in my life without diabetes.

And here they are. 

I am good with data.  By nature, I am not a mathmatician.  I find math rather daunting.  Stastistics too, are not something I'm naturally inclined at handling well.  Having taken on my own diabetes management in my early teens, I had no choice but to get better at math and managing statistics.  Diabetes forced me to develop an ability to analyze data and make decisions based on that analysis.  Those abilities, it turns out, are invaluable both in my managment of personal finances and in my work as a Development professional.

I am incredibly empathetic.  I think most of us who are broken in some way have an empathy that isn't as strong or as obvious as in healthy people.  Chronic illness that begins in childhood, in particular fosters an ability to see and relate to other people's pain and challenges and to want to help.  And though I believe I am empathetic by nature, I also believe that diabetes has sharpened and increased my tendency to feel for others and want to make a difference.

Lord, do I know a lot about the body and how it works.  I know how my organs are connected, how they function, what they do.  I'm knowledgeable about what medications help the body to do or replace in the body.  I am, in all aspects of my medical care, an informed and engaged patient and self advocate.  I'm not sure I would have developed this knowledge, these skill sets, without diabetes.  But I am happy to have them. 

I have met some really special people.  I have connected with people I might not ever have connected with if I didn't have diabetes.  They are smart, funny, strange, and lovely.  Again, who's to say something else wouldn't have connected me with them?  I don't know.  But I do know that diabetes has been instrumental in my discovering people that I simply adore. 

Today, I'm thankful for the above.  Of course, I'd give all of those things up for a life without diabetes, but I recognize that diabetes has had some positive impacts.

I'm also thankful for a supportive family, good friends, and a life filled with love and affection. 

Diabetes is a lot of ugly.  But anyone who says it's entirely so - has not looked close enough.