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Living with T1D can be difficult, but is there anything that you’re thankful for related to T1D? Select all the options you’re grateful for and share your gratitude in the comments!
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Living with T1D has taught me that I am a human being who lives in a body with pancreatic challenges. Since the tender age of 8 years synthetic insulin replacements and artificial beta cell technology has kept me alive for close to 60 years with T1D – and I keep on truckin’ because this life adventure isn’t over yet!!!
I am grateful for the blessings from scientific research, explorations in healing, and applications in self-care and technology innovations that have paved the road to the discovery and development of artificial beta cell function so people like me (and us) can live long and prosper with pretty full, happy and productive lives.
Perhaps someday there will will be a preventive or restorative cure for the kind of beta cell destruction and dysfunction that causes T1D. In the meantime, I have learned that I am more than than just a person with diabetes. Life on Earth is a an awesome gift full of the wonder and beauty of Great Nature, love, joy, pain and sorrow too. Being a part of it all is what makes us human. I am grateful to be an active & appreciative participant in the great mysteries and cycles of Nature and in particular the human life cycle. I have learned to live and love life with diabetes, it has never stopped me from being a human being. For that I am grateful.
Beautiful response! Thank you!
Living with Diabetes for more than 55+ years has instilled a discipline in how I manage my food intake and activities that has translated into other aspects of my life: planning, detail, monitoring, adaptability (out of necessity – diabetes isn’t an exact science), and responding accordingly.
While it started as my worst moment, my diagnosis led to my best moments. It sparked me getting involved with non-profit organizations, where I have found a career that I am extremely passionate about. My diagnosis occurred just before starting to date my now-wife, and as she wanted to become a doctor, her experiences learning about my condition led to her becoming a pediatric endocrinologist. It’s inspiring to see how her care for others blossomed from being a large part of my experiences with T1D. I’m grateful that what was bad news at the time led to so much positivity throughout the years.
We in the States are celebrating today the day of thanksgiving. Approximately 2,000 years ago, Cicero wrote that gratitude “is not only the greatest, but is also the parent of all the other virtues.”
I am thankful for all the essential workers working today—air traffic controllers, hospital janitors, gas station attendants, et al. The rest of us, being big of ego but in reality less essential, tip our hat and thank all of you.
Thankfulness on the part of T1D people and people in general actually stimulates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, part of the brain’s reward circuit:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17439760.2018.1424924?casa_token=X1ckthhuG0sAAAAA%3AGQoQ6d3m_fxszwrTZpLparzKi2ItNGaOxEwfBvqFCqt87lDPibdGd3VSPc9arAqaLZVOqBRXZN_Nyw&journalCode=rpos20
And gratitude can make us more resilient, bolster family bonds, and lower blood pressure:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308181231_Brightening_the_Mind_The_Impact_of_Practicing_Gratitude_on_Focus_and_Resilience_in_Learning 🙏
Your comment started out well until the parts that were overwritten on the right by pictures/links to more articles.
I am thankful that there is treatment available so that I don’t die or have debilitating complications. So many diseases are worse than Diabetes.
Am grateful to be alive. 4 days in the ICU very very close to death due to dka is how I came to be a member of the type 1 tribe. Was horrid. Thankful for the chance to live. Also thankfull for all of you who share your experiences. 3/2020 when pancreas failed. Due to pandemic has no help or contact with others. Truly don’t know how I would have made it this far without strangers sharing their knowledge.
Thankful for Scott Benner and the Juicebox podcast!!
Me too!
Sorry to be so specific, but I’m keenly thankful for the development of the CGM. I never realized how out of control I could be between finger sticks (even if they were every few hours), and the impact that was having on my longevity and quality of life. Now knowing anytime I get out of my upper and lower parameters and being able to deal with it instantly is the best thing that ever happened to me, T1D-wise.
I became a type 1 near the end of 1964. I had a low lottery number and would have had to go to Vietnam. I am great full I didn’t have to go. Being a type 1 has made me a better problem solver than I might have been otherwise.
Same here. I was diagnosed in May 1968 and called for my physical in July. Of course, I got a quick 4F. I really objected to that war.
I am thankful that I am alive and that deleting type 1 diabetes led me to be able to help others who are dealing with it. I am aware of the importance of technology and its effect on our lives. I am grateful for the many doctors whom I have seen who have been supportive as well as all the certified diabetes educators I know who wish to help others. most of all grateful for my family and belief in God
Very thankful for each and every day I have with my family! Thankful for the team of Doctor’s and educators that work with me for better health. Happy Thanksgiving all!
I’m thankful that I learned how to manage this condition. The doctor who diagnosed me told me that one way to stay healthy is to learn how to treat a chronic disease. I am thankful that after a few years with T1D I learned to take it seriously. Today, after 55 years with T1D, it is just a way of life. I am thankful that I have no complications, and that life is good.
I believe my Diabetes led me to my career. I am a personal trainer. I helped my clients with there nutrition as well. I specialized with helping Diabetics. I seen many changes since 1974! I have zero side effects! I am very thankful ❤
Had I not been dx’d (1971), I never who have had the chance to go to summer camp. The hospital suggested it so my family complied but it wouldn’t have been in their minds otherwise. I loved diabetes summer camp!
that was my answer!
All of the possible benefits listed in the question could be gained without diabetes. My interests and self-awareness would have been the same. My answer is that I got to go to summer ca;mp.
So much to be thankful for in life. My parents were medical people (doctor/nurse), they and the whole family supported me when I was diagnosed at 18. The improvements in technology have been great. I just got a kidney transplant and am very thankful for this as well. My husband has been very supportive and helps me track my data.
God is good and has great things in store for me.
I am grateful for all the support that I get from my family and friends in helping me keep a positive attitude in this life long battle with T1D. Looking back over the last 28 years of being diagnosed with T1D, I can’t imagine how hard this journey would have been without this love and support of those close to me…..
Giving Thanks to Dexcom and Tandem for completing the Promise made 25 years ago by MiniMed.
I am grateful for life. It is sometimes a struggle, but it is life.
I am thankful for my wife who has stayed with me for 45 years, even though I became a T1D months after we were married.
I am thankful for many things including the Scientific improvements in the care of diabetes, the doctors, nurses, diabetic educators, and all the folks who offer help with this disease along the way.
I am always thankful for my family.
I am thankful for a rich life and 65 years of dealing with T1D
It’s been a long road from dx in 1955. I’m grateful for the many who have supported my efforts along that journey, especially my family. Life with diabetes has instilled the need to persist and advocate for myself and others. I’m grateful for every day of life that provides that opportunity.
I am grateful for my family, peers, and the scientific community. Life improves each year even if my body does not.
Life is a fatal condition we are all born with! Something we need to be aware of, but make sure to remind us to be grateful for things we take for granted and enjoy each day if possible.
I also am grateful mathematics comes quickly to me.
I am thankful for the awareness to deal with the burden of T1d. It is a tiresome disease but at least at this stage, it is also a manageable disease that motivates me to care for my health. As a side effect also improves my well-being on the whole. I’m sure there will be a time that the tide turns against me. I have the strength and courage to deal with it when the time comes.
Generically I’m thankful for my family’s patience as I control this, including the ups (healthier lifestyle) and downs (expenses and the hypo reactions).
Specifically reading that even with the more archaic tools folks lived 35, 45, and 55 years watching technological improvements, standards of living grow, and so many advantages. Further up Molly Jones commented living is a fatal condition, we never know the when or how. We can lived a little better.
I’m so thankful for those who lived boiling syringes, sharpening needles, peeing on strips as my CGM and pump make my life so livable.
Thank you for acknowledging the primitive ways & means of diabetes survival that we old-timers had to work with when we were diagnosed 40, 50, 60 years ago! We do appreciate that we are still alive all these years later – in part perhaps because of those primitive technologies!
I’ve heard it said that the best way to live a long, healthy life is to acquire a chronic disease and take care of it. I believe this is true, for me at least.
T1D saved my life! I was in a study that requires frequent blood draws. It was noticed that my rbc’s kept creeping up. A tumor was found on my left kidney. Stage 3a upon removal. Just got last year CT scan done. Doing well!
I’ve had a similar experience where a medical problem was discovered by fate just as your RBC results led to a tumor discovery that were discovered by fate. I had no symptoms, but because a medical assistant accidentally ordered a chest x-ray, a large tumor was discovered on my spinal cord. Things sometimes happen for reasons that have no real reason to happen.
I’m eating better and enjoying it more.
That at least there are meds to keep us alive
I am so very thankful for my Dexcom and Tandem pump with Control IQ. They have made all the difference in my ability to take the best care of myself physically and less stress mentally.
grateful I am still alive at age 70 (it wasn’t a given) and grateful for the person I have grown into, which in ways large and small has been shaped by my disease. (Yes, I use that word on purpose. )
Thankful for all of the above. Plus, my TID led me to a career in diabetes research, which has been rewarding.
I weigh the same amount at age 70, as I did when I was a senior in High School. I attribute this 100% to being very conscious of my diet due to T1D.
My grandmother boiled the same syringe everyday to take a daily insulin shot. She didn’t have a meter to self monitor. She did learn to tell when she was going low and treated it herself, probably with over-shooting it and ending up high. She raised, fed, and sewed for 6 children and her husband and helped run their farm, and was a good loving woman. I can’t even.