D-Blog Week, Day 2: One Great Thing

Yesterday, I mentioned on Twitter that I've never heard anybody say that they love having diabetes.  I did have one excellent response to the comment.  Basically, the person responding said diabetes has forced them to "keep fit and make healthier choices".  I definitely agree that is an upside!  I am also sure that most of us, given the choice, would NOT choose to continue having diabetes if given the opportunity to ditch it on the side of the road somewhere.

So what's one great thing that diabetes has done for me?  Well, it pretty much forced me to become a blogger.

In 2006, the word "blog" was pretty new, and the word itself made me gag a little.  I just didn't like the sound of it, much like I hate the words "eyesore" and "moist" and "sportswear".  Having a Livejournal account for years, I was much more accustomed to the phrase "online journal", wherein you could go and type whatever was on your mind.  Blogs were becoming a thing, and at the time, diabetes management was becoming a thing for me.

I wasn't long out of college, and I never had any friends with diabetes.  I was feeling frustrated and struggling with depression.  I turned to the internet to see what people were saying about diabetes and what kind of message boards were out there.  It wasn't long until I discovered the burgeoning Diabetes OC.  There weren't so many of us back then, and it took another couple of years for tweeting to really catch on.  Yet I found a little piece of something on the interwebs, people with smiling faces and joyful lives who also had to pause to check their blood glucose levels.  They were bloggers who struggled and laughed, who shared good times and bad with diabetes.

Finally, I found a place to share my own thoughts on living like this.  I do hope I've found a way to help some of my non-diabetic friends understand what it's like.  Without writing this blog, where would I talk about the guilt-ridden nuances that ride on top of a heavily frosted cupcake?  Where could I post pictures of my Dexcom read-outs and make jokes that involve the song "Love Rollercoaster"?  Blogging is a one-stop-shop for me to talk all things diabetes.

Being a "blogger" became less about using a stupid-sounding title, and more about regularly writing and speaking my mind.  

Blogging helps me connect to the various ins and outs of social media.  Knowing a lot about social media makes me feel like an expert, and using this expertise is something that I hope will land me a new job at some point in the future.

Not everyone I know can say they have their own dot-com web address.  Blogging makes me write and care about presentation.  Blogging makes me Tweet and start a Facebook fan page.  Blogging makes me curious about all the latest programs for managing all the social media in your life.

Blogging keeps me current.  Diabetes keeps me blogging.  It's not so bad for a word I never liked that much in the first place.  And sure, diabetes always keeps me on my toes, which is sometimes a good way to be, but I guess I am grateful that diabetes, burdensome as it can be, is one more thing that spurs on my passions.

I assure you this: if they cure diabetes in the next few years, well, I hope you like really personal blog updates, because what else am I going to talk about?