Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Thankful for parts of Diabetes, Yes I am!



I know I have not been blogging lately.  I’m deeply sorry.  I have been very busy with real life.  I went to visit a friend in PA and caught the puke/poop bug, and was sick for a few days.  I am also moving down to PA so been busy packing on top of the normal daily activities.

I wanted to share with you all something that actually makes me thankful for diabetes.  It is my BFF Jody. I met her in 2004ish on a diabetes forum Diabetes Daily.  We chatted on their message boards and chat room for a few years.  We became very close good friends.  In fact so close we consider ourselves twins.  We have a lot of similarities.  She is a few days shy of 6 months older than me, we were diagnosed around the same time, have similar interests.  It is quite funny.  The saddest thing is we live an ocean apart, me on the east coast of the US she in England.  So it’s very hard to keep in touch as there is a 5-6 hour time difference depending on the time of year.  And mailing letters and packages and phone calls are expensive.

In 2009 she got the opportunity to come over to the US and visit me here in Boston.  She came over with her cousin and her cousins 2 kids who were 3 months and 2.5 at the time.  We had a ball.  We went to Vermont Teddy Bear Factory, Ben & Jerry’s, NYC, all sorts of places in Boston.  She even experienced Chuck-E-Cheese one rainy day. 

June 2011 I had the chance of a life time and got to go to Scarborough England to visit her.  I had the time of my life.  I stayed there for 3 weeks.  We saw everything in Scarborough…I even got to go to her Endo appointment.  We took train rides to York for the day and met up with another D girl, and we took the train to London for 5 days.  I love London I cannot wait to go back and visit there.  In addition to the train we took the bus to some Sea side towns, and her dad drove us to some cool places like the Moors National Park and a Tea House.  It is so beautiful over there.  And I just have to say living over there is so different than here in the US.  They use a ton of public transportation, and it gave me a whole new approach to public transit.  I now love using buses and trains here in the states to get around.  We also walked almost everywhere.  Something we here in the states hardly do.  We don’t think twice about jumping in the car to go to the corner store.  There if we couldn’t use the town busses we walked.  We walked everywhere, to the grocery store, her hospital appts, her cousin’s house, the grocery store.  If we wanted to go somewhere we had to walk.

I know diabetes can be very frustrating at times.  But because of diabetes I have made several great friends worldwide--from the Philippines, to Malaysia, TO Australia, to all parts of Europe, to Canada, to all over the US.  When I get down about diabetes I like to think of all these friends I have gained and the opportunities I had because I have diabetes. 

I have to give a quick shout out to some of the great ladies I have met.  Jody, Lucy, and Carrie in England, Joni in MN, Hannah in Malaysia, Lloyd in SD, Jess in Nova Scotia, Alexis and Megan in Las Vegas, and there are many many more.