One Year With Diabetes

About a week ago I had a doctor appointment.  It was my routine diabetes checkup.

My weight wasn't quite as low as I would have liked.  During the months of November and December I took somewhat of a break from dieting and consumed all sorts of holiday treats.  The net result of that was that I was only down 8 pounds from the last time I was at the doctor six months ago.

However, weight is only one way to measure success, and frankly it's the least important.  The most important test for a diabetic is A1C.  It's a measure of how saturated your blood cells are with sugar.  You are considered diabetic at 7%.  Pre-diabetic is 5.7%.  When I was diagnosed a year ago I was at 10.6%.

One year later, at my doctor appointment, my A1C came in at 5.4%.  Booya!

Just bask in that number for a moment.

That means my blood sugar is now in the normal range.  My new goal is 5.3%.  Not that I need to get any lower, but it would be cool to be half of where I was diagnosed at.

After seeing my A1C, my doctor asked if my blood sugar had ever gone too low.  I said there were a few times after exercise that I had felt lightheaded and when I tested my blood sugar it was in the 80s.  (The normal range is 90-120).  The 80s are not dangerously low, but the 70s are, so he was concerned that my blood sugar could potentially get too low, especially as I continue to lose weight.

Therefore, he instructed me to stop taking my medication.  My medication is designed to lower my blood sugar, but if it doesn't need lowering, then it can push me too low.

Of course, with that instruction came a speech.  He told me that this doesn't mean I'm cured.  It means that I'm controlling diabetes through diet and exercise.  He also said that without medication, the only thing controlling diabetes is diet and exercise.  So he just wanted to make sure I didn't quit, because that could be dangerous.

He also said that he's never had a patient turn diabetes around as quickly as I have.  Booya!  My health has never been about competing with anyone else.  But as soon as I knew I was winning the competition, then it was all about competing.

It's been a crazy year, but I've learned a few things.  I might share some other things I've learned later, but here's a big lesson I've come to know.

Nothing Is Impossible.

I know that's really cliche.  People like to say that nothing is impossible while secretly acknowledging that lots of things are impossible.  I too will acknowledge that you're bound by the laws of physics as well as the laws of the land you live in.  But what I'm trying to say is that there are things that you perceive as impossible, but they're not.

I want to show you what can happen in a year.

This picture was taken February 24, 2013.  Less than a year ago.

This picture was taken this morning, on my morning walk.

You'll notice a few things.  One, my head is less spherical.  Also, I'm wearing a hat.  It turns out I get cold sometimes now.  I'm missing 65 pounds of insulation.  But changing what I look like isn't what's impossible.

One year ago, I started walking on the treadmill and I would put it on 2 mph, with zero incline.  If I really wanted a workout, I'd put it on 3 mph, but I couldn't handle it for more than 2 or 3 minutes.  This morning, I did 3.5 miles in about an hour.  I didn't ever stop to rest, and along the way I saw this.

Of course, I saw it at the top of the hill after I had climbed it.

One year ago, climbing to the top of an 18% grade, would have been completely impossible.  For many of you, that's probably not a big deal.  But for me, I'm not exaggerating when I say it was completely impossible a year ago.

In 2014, I plan to do a number of things that were impossible a year ago.  I plan to hike to the summit of Mount Timpanogos at 11,000 feet.  I plan to hike to Havasu Falls (10 miles one way with a 2,000 foot elevation change) and I plan to go Scuba diving in Honduras.  I also want to ride a bike to my work (about 15 miles away) at least once, but hopefully more often if I actually enjoy it.

All of those things were impossible a year ago.  But now, they're not even going to be a big deal.  What was once impossible is reality today.

What impossible things will you do in your future?

I should be clear.  I'm not saying that things that you see as impossible will come easily to you, if you just decide they're not impossible.  There's a reason you think they're impossible.  It's because they're probably REALLY HARD.  But really hard is different from impossible.

It's been really hard to dramatically alter my body chemistry in one year.  It's been really hard to completely alter my eating habits.  It's been really hard to walk over 500 miles in the past year, and go to the gym 3 times a week.

But really hard is not impossible.  It just seems that way.  Whatever it is, you can do it.

Weight Loss: It's Not a Race

I like data.  I like anything I can measure in numbers.  I like graphs and charts and statistics and percentages.  That's why I've been measuring everything about myself as I've been losing weight.

At the end of every month, I weigh myself, and measure my belly, arms, legs, neck, you name it.

It's fun when those measurements have drastic changes.  I had one month where I lost 2 inches off my belly.  I had one month where I lost 10 pounds.  I had one month where my body fat percentage dropped 3.8 points.

Then I have also had months like November.  My weight loss in the month of November was 0.4 pounds.

Did it have something to do with this?

Ya, probably.

Or this?

Most definitely.

While I did do lots of exercise over the month of November, I also allowed myself to splurge much more than normal.

The result was that I basically didn't lose any weight in November.

On the last day of every month, I look forward to seeing my numbers, and looking over my (geeky) little spread sheet.  But when I saw that particular number I was discouraged.

Robyn, in an attempt to cheer me up said, "At least you didn't gain any weight over Thanksgiving."  She's of course, correct.  Many people gain weight over the holidays.  So far, I've just managed to maintain over the holidays.

But then I got to thinking about it more.  There's a show I watch called extreme weight loss.  In it, Chris Powell helps morbidly obese people transform their lives over the course of one year.  Many of them lose 200+ pounds in a year.  There was one particular episode that inspired me.  This particular individual had a severe food addiction.  He could not bring himself to follow the meal plan.  He worked out really hard, but he also wouldn't stop going out for fast food.

The goal Chris had set for him was to lose something like 75 pounds in 3 months.  At the end of the 3 month period, he had lost about 30 pounds.  Chris was furious.  He was so disappointed that this guy had not lived up to his full potential.

But when I watched that I saw something completely different.  I didn't see failure.  I saw someone who could succeed without being perfect.  That unintentional message may have changed my life forever.

I may have lost very little weight in November, but let me tell you about a few other numbers.

In November my biceps increased by 1/4 inch.  (For a while they were decreasing because I had so much fat on my arms.  The fat has finally moved out of the way so that muscle can increase it.)

In November, I worked up to the point where I do 80 pushups every morning.

In November, I set a new record of being able to climb 2700 feet in under 2 hours.

In November, the highest I ever saw my blood sugar was 123.

Looking at those numbers I realized that perhaps weight was never the best measure in the first place.  But, more importantly, I realized that it's okay to indulge on occasion.  It's okay to not be perfect.  And it's okay if sometimes progress is slower than others.

As with many things, it's not a race.  It doesn't matter how fast you get there.  It matters what direction you're going.

Non Scale Victories: Oranges

Diabetes is such a misunderstood disease.  People think it means you can't eat sugar.  What they don't understand is that all food eventually breaks down to glucose.  It's just a matter of how fast.

A normal person's blood sugar will generally fall anywhere from 80-120, but may go as high as 140 right after eating.  My doctor told me that any time my blood sugar goes above 200, it is damaging my body.  When I was diagnosed, my average blood sugar, day or night, whether I had just eaten or I was exercising or I was sleeping, was 260.  That means it probably never got below 200 and probably soared high above 300 after eating.

When I was first diagnosed, I had to learn all about glycemic index, glycemic load and other fancy terms. Diabetics don't just avoid candy.  I learned that other high glycemic foods could be just as bad.  Potatoes, pasta, bread, oranges and watermelon all have a high glycemic index.

When I discovered that, I swore off oranges.  Oranges are high in vitamins and nutrients, but they would spike my blood sugar like nobody's business.  I remember eating an orange as a snack and checking my blood sugar an hour later and seeing it over 200.

Fast forward almost a year.  There are 65 pounds less of me in the world.  My blood sugar really doesn't spike anymore.  The highest I've seen it in the past 3 months was 134.  That was after a particularly carb filled breakfast.  (Mornings are still when it's the highest.  I had to read a lot before I found an explanation for that that made sense.  I won't get into the explanation, but it's directly related to why Metformin is a good medication for me.)

Last week on Halloween, I decided that I was allowed to go completely crazy and eat whatever I wanted for 1 day.  (I also have granted myself permission to do the same on Thanksgiving and Christmas.)  I went out for Mexican for lunch, eating tons of carb filled chips and a huge burrito.  I had chinese for dinner, with lots of rice, and lo mein.  Finally, I ended the day eating all sorts of candy.

If I'm being honest, I didn't enjoy my indulgence nearly as much as I thought I would.  I sort of felt sick at the end of the night.  Regardless of that, I took my blood before going to bed and it was 124.  That was one of the higher readings I'd seen recently, but it was still completely reasonable.

So this week, after discovering that my blood sugar stays under control even if I eat garbage, I decided I might be able to bring back oranges, a more healthy glycemic food.  Naturally, I bought a giant Costco box of oranges.

Don't they look delicious?

Then, I decided to perform an experiment.  (The only good thing about diabetes is that everything you eat is one constant science experiment performed on your blood sugar.)  I ate a normal breakfast, and then I ate an orange every ten minutes for 30 minutes.  I know that's only 3 oranges, which isn't a ton, but it should be plenty to create a glucose spike.  I took my blood 3 or 4 minutes after the third orange, and here was the result.

That's right, it was 110.  I'm like a normal person.  Remember when I used to have diabetes?

Losing weight is great.  It's fun to see smaller numbers on the scale, but it's the non scale victories that really matter.  I can eat my favorite fruit.

On Drugs

I'm totally on drugs.  But I have a goal to be drug free, just like I learned in elementary school.

It all started about 6 months ago.  I hate going to the pharmacy. As such, I asked my doctor if there were a way for me to get my diabetes medication in large quantities, so that I could pick it up less often. My doctor, being the kind soul that he is, made sure to oblige. He gave me a prescription for a 3 month supply, which is 2 ginormous bottles of Metformin.

Then, a few months later, after I lost a bajillion pounds (bajillion is totally a number, in this case bajillion means 50)  and significantly lowered my blood sugar, he told me to cut the amount of medication I'm taking in half.

I continued on, taking my lower dosage, until the bottle I was using ran out.  I naturally called the pharmacy to refill my prescription and came home with 2 more ginormous bottles.

That's when Robyn informed me I still had a ginormous bottle that I hadn't used yet.

So my current "ginormous bottle of Metformin" count is up to 3.

I'm not sure why the newer bottles are taller, but they're all ginormous.

Before you decide that you should rush over to my house and steal my large drug stockpile, there are some things you should know.

1.  Stealing from me is not awesome.  We already went over that.
2.  Metformin isn't the type of drug you get high on.  You wouldn't enjoy it.  All it does is help lower your blood sugar.  I suppose if you took enough you might get some really cool shakes and perhaps a coma, but that's the most fun you'll be able to have.

I looked at all those pills and thought about how my kidney would probably appreciate it if I wasn't on drugs.  So I set a goal.

My goal is to never fill that prescription again.   Those 3 bottles should last me a good 9 months at my current dosage.  By then I should be under 200 pounds.  Hopefully, at that point I won't need diabetes medication.

Don't worry, I'll do what my doctor says.  If he says I still need it, I'll keep taking it.

But, I just want to be drug free.   I want to say no to drugs.  It's what the D.A.R.E. officer that visited my fifth grade class would have wanted.

Sometimes I Dominate Diabetes

I went to the Dr. this past week, to get my diabetes checkup.  I was really excited to have my A1C tested.

If you don't what what A1C is, it's the percentage of hemoglobin cells that are saturated with sugar.  It's the most important diabetes test, because it shows how well managed your blood sugar is.  5.7% is considered pre-diabetic.  7% is considered diabetic.  When I was diagnosed, mine was at 10.6%.

My goal was to be at 5.6, so that I could be a normal person.  I had my family make guesses as to what my A1C would actually be at.

As you can see, my sister, Jen and myself were the only ones who thought I would make my goal.  Also, I explained to my brother, Zack, that it is measured in tenths of a percent, so his guess was guaranteed to be wrong.  But he insisted on 5.92.

As it turns out, I didn't make my goal.  My A1C came in at 5.7.  So my sister, Mellen, wins.  I think this kind of guessing game is sort of like The Price is Right.  You want to get the closest without going over.  Because Jen can at least say that she believed in me too much.  The others went over, so they're not nearly as awesome.

I was disappointed that I didn't hit my goal.  But the Dr. thought I did fantastic.  In fact, he told me he thinks we should lower my medication.  I was way scared.  Doesn't he know that I'm managing diabetes so well partly because of my medication?  But, ultimately the goal is to get off the medication completely.  So, I agreed to lower it.  We dropped my Metformin from 2000 mg/day to 1000 mg/day.

He also said that since it's so well handled, we probably only need to get together once every 6 months.  My goal for my February appointment is an A1C of 5.6 or lower, basically stay where I'm at even though I'm on the lower dosage of medication.

Wish me luck!

Managing Diabetes on a Cruise

If you've been following my blog at all you know that I recently returned from an Alaskan cruise.

It was an amazing experience.  I loved every minute of it.  Of course, on a cruise there is plentiful food.  Every meal is all-you-can-eat and not everything is health food.  Those who are aware of my quest for weight loss have asked me how I handled weight loss and diabetes management on a cruise.

There are 2 parts to my diabetes management.  The first is the daily managing of my blood sugar.  This involves limiting my intake of carbohydrates.  It also involves keeping my physical activity up so that my muscles use the sugar that is in my blood.

The second part is losing weight.  Fat cells do not process sugar, and the leaner the muscle is, the better it processes sugar.  So the more weight I lose, the better I can process sugar.  My weight loss journey involves three things: I do weight training three times a week to build lean muscle, I do walking 6 days a week as a form of cardio and I limit my caloric intake.

Before I left on the cruise I decided that I was still going to manage my blood sugar, but I was not going to worry about weight loss at all.  That meant that I could eat all the calories I want, but not all the carbs I want.

There were a few times that those rules were difficult, but for the most part it was pretty easy.  For example, that means that on the last night I ordered both the prime rib and the lobster, but I ordered the sugar free dessert.  I didn't order sugar free with every meal, but I did lots of sugar free desserts and I think I tried every sugar free option the ship offered at one point or another.  The buffet area always had these delicious sugar free mousses that were amazing.  I really didn't feel like I was missing out at all.

I found that there were always healthy options.  You really didn't have to overindulge, but of course, the option to overindulge always existed.  The menu always pointed out which option was the low calorie option.  Sometimes I took that option, other times I didn't.

Of course, the second part of managing my blood sugar is making sure that I get plenty of physical activity.  On days in port, that was easy.  There was nothing I wanted to do in Alaska more than go hiking, so that got my physical activity taken care of.

It was a little bit harder on days at sea, but luckily the ship had a track on the top deck.  I put in a lot of miles on that track.

The first day at sea, traveling from Seattle to Alaska, we were in open ocean.  The ship was traveling 30 mph into a 20 mph wind.  That meant there was a relative wind of 50 mph blowing across the top deck.  That was the funnest exercise ever!  I walked 3 miles in that 50 mph wind.  As I walked on the starboard side, I was walking into the wind so it was like a hard core hike.  On the port side it was at my back, so I pretty much just lifted my legs and the wind did the rest of the work.  So I would run on the port side and walk on starboard.  Super fun!

Other sea days there was less wind and more scenery.  I'll be honest, I can't think of anything on the ship that I could do that would be as fun as walking and enjoying Alaska scenery.  I took this little video to give an idea of what it was like.

I walked 5.5 miles the morning I took that video.  That's 22 times around that ship.  That may sound like a lot but the guy who lapped me 6 times during those 5.5 miles probably didn't think I was too impressive.

So, that's how I managed my diabetes.  I don't have super good data on where my blood sugar was at.  I normally test my blood 2 hours after eating.  Every time I ate, I made a mental note to test in 2 hours, but I always got involved in some adventure and didn't think to test until 3 or 4 hours later.  Every time I tested my blood sugar, it was within the expected range, but since I was slow to test, it may have gone high once or twice without my knowledge.

How about my weight loss?  Since I wasn't trying to lose weight how did I do?  Well, the morning I got back I weighed myself and I had gone up 5 pounds.  But I fluctuate 2-3 pounds from day to day, so it was really only 2 pounds above the margin of error.

Here is a graph of my weight loss for the past 3 months.

As you can see, the weight melted off pretty fast after the cruise.  In fact, my total weight loss this year is now over 50 pounds!  I have a Dr. appointment later this week.  I had my family members try to guess what my A1C will be.  I'll let you know how that goes.

Getting Healthy By the Numbers

Recently, I've posted a lot about my weight loss.  I've been working really hard to get myself healthier.  Trying to be healthy is a funny thing.  How do you measure health?  It's like trying to measure happiness.  If my body feels good right now, is that not health?  If I feel content and at peace right now is that not happiness?

I won't try to delve any deeper than that on the subject of happiness, because that's way too philosophical for me right now, and it's not really the subject I want to discuss.

What I really want to discuss is measuring health.  It's really such an intangible thing.  I've focused a lot on my weight, simply because that is very easy to measure.  But I fully recognize that is not necessarily the best measure of health.  There are plenty of very skinny people that would not describe themselves as healthy.

There are many numbers that can measure health.  There is no 1 metric that really measures it by itself, but there are plenty that go in conjunction together, such as blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.

I am a numbers person.  I love numbers.  I love crunching and extrapolating data.  Naturally, I record data any time I can.  The following is a story about me trying to improve my health.  It's also a story with some numbers.  Doesn't that make you glad?

Three months ago, I went to the Doctor for a checkup so that he could approve us for adoption.  While I was there, he asked me some questions about diabetes symptoms.  I had enough symptoms that he wanted to do a blood test to test for diabetes.  The test for diabetes is the A1C.  It tests how saturated your red blood cells are with glucose.  My test came back at a 10.7.  Normal people are usually less than 5.  6.5 is considered diabetic.

Since then, I have completely changed my lifestyle.  I watch what I eat, especially carbs.  I try to walk or run daily and I work out with weights 3 times per week.  My change in lifestyle has caused some changes in my body.  Here are some changes that have occurred over the past 3 months.

My belly has shrunk by 2.5 inches.
My neck has shrunk by 1 inch.
My thighs have shrunk by 2.5 inches.
I have lost 34 pounds.

But there is one number, that right now is the most important to me.
Here is that number.

You're probably thinking, "What the heck is 6.3?"  Well, I went to the Doctor again yesterday.  I had my A1C tested, and it was 6.3.  Remember how I said that 6.5 is considered diabetic?  That means that technically, my blood agrees that I'm no longer diabetic.

Now, I fully recognize that the disease still exists, I've just been able to handle the symptoms.  But this was a huge victory for me.  I asked my doctor where my A1C needs to be to avoid diabetes complications.  He said, "It needs to be under 7.  You're there, just make sure you stay there."

It told my wife that my goal for 3 months from now is 5.6, because 5.7 is considered pre-diabetic.  She was skeptical, but I told her that her job is to say, "I know you can do it!"  Naturally, she did her job.


Here some more numbers that I'm excited about:
Number of migraines in the past 2 months: 0 (used to be 1-2 per week)
Number of times in the past 2 months I've had to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom: 0 (it used to be 1-2 per night, so my body could dump out sugar)
Number of times my shorts have fallen off in the front yard: 1 (used to be zero.  I guess not all of the new numbers are good.)


I'm excited for the future.  I'm excited that this disease has motivated me to become more healthy all around. I'm excited for the experiences that greater health will bring me.  I'm also excited to record lots more numbers.

Faithfulness in Times of Trial

For the last 4 years of my life, I've spent 2 out of the 3 hours at church with 3-year-olds.  This year, we were asked to teach the 12-year-olds for one of those hours, which means the third hour was opened up for me to attend Elder's Quorum.  I was super excited about that at the beginning of the year.  I decided I wanted to make the best of it, so I set a goal to read the assigned readings every week before Sunday so that I could get the most out of the lessons.

This year, the book we have been reading is The Teachings of President Lorenzo Snow.  I really enjoy the weeks when we cover a chapter of this book.  I've come to call it "Book Club Week."  It functions just like a book club.  We have an assigned reading and we get together and discuss what we read.  And, just like every book club I've ever been a part of, most people don't actually finish the assigned reading, so it becomes a discussion between the three people who actually read, while everyone else does their best to get us off topic.  I love it.

This week's reading was Chapter 7:  Faithfulness in Times of Trial.  There were a lot of powerful lessons in this chapter.  The funny thing about this chapter, was that as I was reading, I actually had the thought:  "I really don't have that many trials."  Then, about a nanosecond later, the other half of my brain said, "Hey stupid head, do you not remember this past year?"  (Two things you should know about the quarreling parts of my brain.  1.They're not always friendly to each other, but it's always out of love.  2.They name call each other like 2nd graders.)

(I am about to tell you about 2 trials that I have not talked about before on this blog.  Both were too difficult to write about at the time.  But, apparently since I forgot that they were trials, I have healed sufficiently to talk about them.)

The cranky half of my brain continued, "Remember how you paid a doctor $5000 to cut you open.  Remember how that was almost exactly a year ago?  Remember how painful it was?  Remember how you had to lay in bed for 3 days?"

Remember how cute I was in the process?

I have to explain a little bit more about why I was in the hospital.  As most of you know, Robyn and I are trying to adopt.  I may write more about how we came to that decision later.  But, I'll just say now that we arrived at that decision only after several years of trying to have kids, working with fertility experts, even getting surgery in hopes of helping the problem, and ultimately being told it was impossible.

To say that it was a trial would be an understatement.  Here is an excerpt from my journal in May of last year:  "Robyn made the statement, 'All I ever wanted was to be a mom.  Is that so much to ask?'  It shook me to the very core.  I wept with her.  She has always had an urgency about having kids.  I have never felt that.  It's always been something that I want in the future but it doesn't have to be today.  But when I realized that someday may not be an option, and never may be the only option.  That really hit me.  I don't know how to deal with never."

In high school they try to convince you that you should never even talk to girls because they might get pregnant if you hold hands.  Apparently that is the case for most people, which makes it even harder to not be most people.  It's difficult to watch announcements of pregnancy pretty much every day on Facebook, and realize that we will never make that announcement.

I have been blessed with something that I believe is much more powerful than my trials.  I have been blessed with faith.  I thoroughly believe that the Lord has a plan for my life.  I know that His plan includes what is absolutely best for me.  Why would I not want to take the road that ends with the absolute best thing, regardless of how bumpy that road?

I've had to make peace with the idea that the plan I started with, is not necessarily the same as the plan the Lord has laid out.  That certainly hasn't been easy, but the Lord has "consecrated my afflictions for my gain" (Jacob 2:2) and I have really felt that.  Going through the trial of infertility has certainly brought me closer to Robyn.  I've also been endowed with a greater level of faith that has given me the strength to move forward.

Infertility is actually what leads into the next trial.  Since then, the road we've begun to travel is toward adoption.  On the road to adoption we were required to get checked out by doctors.  (They basically just have to say that we're going to live for 18 years, so we can raise a child.)  While I was being checked out for adoption, the doctor ran some blood tests and let me know that I am diabetic.

For me, that was worse than the infertility revelation.  I was completely terrified of diabetes.  All I knew about diabetes was that it makes people go blind, lose limbs, have heart attacks and kidney failure.  I read more about it.  I read about neuropathy in your extremities, where it feels like you have barb wire tightly wound around your feet.

I was so afraid of the complications of diabetes, I literally wept.  It seemed to me, my options were to suffer through neuropathy or to never eat food again.

But then I realized how blessed I was to find out relatively early on.  Most people get diagnosed in their 50s. They often have to go right into insulin therapy because their pancreas has already become a casualty to the disease.  I was given the blessing of some medication to lessen the risks.  I was given the blessing of having a choice to change my lifestyle.

I've heard it said that there are two forms of motivation.  You can be running from a nightmare, or you can be chasing a dream.  Two months ago I began running from a nightmare.  I realized I needed to change my lifestyle and get healthier to lessen my risks of diabetes complications.  In those 2 months I've lost about 30 pounds.  I've turned back the clock about 5 years.  I feel healthier than I have felt in a long time.  

To be honest, I no longer fear the nightmare.  I am much more motivated by the dream.  I've had enough success in changing my health already that I'm beginning to see a future that I wouldn't have dreamed possible before.

What will it be like to be able to do things I haven't done in years?  I'll be able to stand on top of mountains.  I'll be able to ride in an airplane without having to request a seat belt extender.  I'll be able to explore the world and not have to waste so much of my vacation time resting in a hotel room.  I'm gonna go sky diving!  (They don't let super obese people go sky diving.)

I have realized what a blessing it is to have found out about my diabetes.  It has given me the motivation to change and to become a new person.   That trial/blessing grew out of the first trial of infertility.  I would not have found out about my diabetes without going through the adoption process.

When I think about my life, I think about how excited I am about the future.  My life is better now than it was a year ago.  I feel closer to my wife.  I feel healthier.  I feel more spiritual strength.  I feel happier.  

That's why it's so hard to remember that I have trials.  Trials don't stay as trials for very long.  They have a way of turning into blessings.

It's certainly still difficult to know that we can't have a family in the way we originally planned.  It's difficult to know that I will always have to manage a disease that could have terrible complications if left unchecked.  But, ultimately, I look forward to a future where every day is brighter and better than the day before, both in this life as well as the next.

As Lorenzo Snow said, "I know that your lives have not been all sunshine; you have doubtless passed through many a trial, and perhaps you have come up through much tribulation; but by continued integrity you will soon emerge from the shadows into the glorious sunshine of the celestial world."