Diabetes,

I never wanted to know you.

I never wanted you to become part of my daughter’s story. I never wanted to watch my little girl learn to count, calculate, adjust, worry, and carry a responsibility that no child should have to carry. There were countless moments when I wished I could take it from her, even for a day.

From the beginning, though, she showed me something I would come to recognize again and again: she was going to meet this challenge on her own terms. Even while she was still in the hospital, still learning what her diagnosis meant, she was already checking her own blood sugar and giving herself her own shots. She wanted to understand what was happening to her, and she wanted to learn how to manage it herself.

That little scientist is still very much a part of her. Whenever she is high, our running joke is, “Are you running an experiment to see if you’re still diabetic?” It is a small joke, but humor has been one of the ways we have learned to live alongside something that was never supposed to be part of our lives.

A decade into this journey, I find myself saying something I never expected to say:

Thank you.

Not for the disease itself. I will never be grateful for the fear, the sleepless nights, the alarms, the highs and lows, or the constant uncertainty. I would take all of that away from her in a heartbeat.

I am grateful, however, for the resilience I have watched grow in her.

Diabetes asked a great deal of a little girl. In return, she developed a remarkable amount of grit. She learned to keep going when she was tired, frustrated, frightened, or simply tired of having to think about diabetes at all. She learned that strength does not mean something is easy; sometimes it simply means you keep moving forward anyway.

Along the way, she also learned to use what she had experienced to help other people.

I will always remember watching her let her twin brother place her Dexcom CGM. Eventually, she trusted her little sister to do it, too. Something that had once been frightening and overwhelming had become something she could teach someone else to navigate.

When another little girl in our school district was diagnosed, Charlotte wanted to visit her in the hospital. She knew what that little girl was about to face because she had lived it herself. She understood the fear and confusion of suddenly having to learn an entirely new way of living. More than anything, she wanted that little girl to know she wasn't alone.

That is one of the things diabetes has given me the privilege of witnessing: my daughter turning something difficult into compassion for someone else.

Today, the little girl who once sat in a hospital learning to give herself shots is a freshman in college, pursuing her ultimate goal of becoming a surgeon. She has spent ten years learning to manage diabetes while also growing into the person she was meant to become. There have been plenty of highs and lows along the way, both literally and figuratively, but diabetes has never been allowed to become the boundary of what she believes she can accomplish.

Perhaps the greatest unexpected gift has been the way you brought us closer.

Diabetes became something we had to navigate together. It made me her advocate, her cheerleader, her late-night problem solver, and sometimes simply the person sitting beside her when there was nothing I could fix. We have shared moments of worry, frustration, celebration, and relief that no one else could fully understand. Through all of it, we became an even stronger team.

When I look at Charlotte now, I don't see the little girl who received a diagnosis that changed everything.

I see a strong, determined young woman who has learned that difficult does not mean impossible. I see a future surgeon who understands what it means to face something hard, learn from it, and keep moving forward. I see a young woman whose experiences have given her not only resilience, but empathy.

I am incredibly proud of her.

So, Diabetes, thank you—not for the burden you placed on her, but for the resilience, grit, compassion, and determination she discovered within herself while carrying it.

You may always be a part of her story, but you will never be the whole story. She is so much more than her diagnosis, and I cannot wait to see what she does next.

Until the Next Experiment,

Amy