Pied Beauty

Freaky Friday - Friday 5/17 Link List

Today's Prompt: Just like in the movie, today we’re doing a swap. If you could switch chronic diseases, which one would you choose to deal with instead of diabetes? And while we’re considering other chronic conditions, do you think your participation in the DOC has affected how you treat friends and acquaintances with other medical conditions? (Thanks to Jane of Jane K. Dickinson, RN, PhD, CDE and Bob of T Minus Two for this topic suggestion.)

As many of my bloggy brethren are pointing out today, chronic conditions often come in boxed sets. You might not get just type 1 diabetes. You can end up with its pesky autoimmune family members, too - its little cousin Celiac, its uncle Hashimoto, its crappy sister Crohn's, or grandpa Arthritis. The list goes on.

Me? I got Diabetes' sweet great aunt - Vitiligo.

As chronic conditions go, I'll be honest, she's a peach. Well, not a peach so much. Maybe a speckled peach.

She's quiet. She wouldn't hurt a fly. She's just a little odd-looking. You rarely even notice her. Maybe you'll walk past a mirror and catch her there. Or she'll photobomb you when you're working on your best duckface.

Little Eye Go

I've always had weird skin pigment issues, I guess.

When I was a little girl, maybe 8 years old, my mom's friend french-braided my hair and teased me about a gray streak that laced through the braid. It originated at a small whitish spot hidden on my scalp where the hair grew out white.

That gray rarely showed - maybe just on the odd occasion that I exposed the underside of my hair while brushing it. I was always strangely proud of it, as though it was a pretty silver little secret hidden in my hair.

Around age 13 or so, a crescent shaped area around the very large and noticeable birthmark on my leg seemed to be blanched - as though the dark brown of my birthmark was sucking pigment from the surrounding tissue.

My arm freckles and a small freckle on my chest developed small white auras. Weird, but much of this whiteness seemed to subside or fade in my adult years, so I didn't think much on it.

Until I had Dibbs.