Jennifer Lewis Compton

I was diagnosed at age four after going into a coma and being taken to Riley Hospital where I spent two weeks recovering and learning how to live with diabetes. My parents were told my life expectancy was 26 years. I will turn 54 this year and continue to thrive. I married, have my law degree and had a healthy child who is the joy of my life. All things that at the time I was diagnosed were not imaginable.

To be clear, each day is a fight. A fight to focus on what is important to me while balancing the needs of this disease which takes in unkind ways. At times I have felt isolated, different, needy and unable to care for myself. What I now realize is that I am stronger than most could imagine and sharing the challenges and anger being diabetic has caused has given me and those I love a bond that is stronger than can be explained and is hard to understand without having lived it. So many of us have. And we are all amazing.