There are a lot of words that I could use to describe myself, but gardener is not one of them. In fact, I often joke that I have a black thumb, killing even the hardiest of plants. My boyfriend on the other hand, loves to garden. When I managed to nearly kill a succulent, he nursed it back to health. When he talks about his plants that he grew in containers on his balcony and the vegetables that he harvested, his face lights up. You can tell it’s something that he’s passionate about. So when he suggested that I try to grow some vegetables on my apartment balcony with his guidance, I figured I’d give it a try.

We planted 2 kale plants, one beet plant and some chives. I’ll admit, it was pretty amazing to see the transformation of the plants in just a few weeks time. My garden consultant would examine the plants and tell me when to water and how much, helped spray the plants with organic pesticides and just generally kept an eye on how things were going.

It became a ritual each morning to check on the kale plants and report back the progress. Everything seemed to going well until random holes started to appear on the leaves. At first I couldn’t tell what was causing it, but then we found the culprits: baby cabbage worms.

My boyfriend picked them off and we sprayed the leaves again. I thought that was the end of it. We went out of town for a long weekend and returned to devastation. The poor kale plant was almost completely devoured by the now rather large and plump worms.

It was a sad sight. The worms had won. I’ll admit that I pretty much gave up on my kale plants. It was a good first attempt at gardening, my black thumb prevailing in the end. My boyfriend cut off the mostly eaten leaves, leaving the middle stem, hoping for the best.

And guess what?! Those darn kale plants are fighters! They’re growing giant, strong leaves, with more leaves constantly starting. I look at the plant and I can’t believe it’s the same one that I had practically written-off as a failure. I’m sorry I doubted you, kale. You survived the worm invasion and came out even bigger and stronger than before.

So why am I telling you about my gardening adventures on my blog about diabetes? I’ve been having a really difficult and frustrating time with my pump and CGM the past 3-4 months, which has resulted in poor blood sugars, bad moods, and a lot of frustration and even tears. I haven’t blogged in awhile because I didn’t want my blog to turn into a place of negativity and complaining.

While sitting outside working today, admiring the recovery of my kale plants, I realized that I am in the midst of my own worm invasion. (Metaphorically. Don’t worry, I don’t have worms). Things are hard right now. I feel my mental and emotional resources depleting. It’s sometimes hard to stay optimistic. But I, like my kale plants, am a fighter. And I too hope that in time, I’ll be even stronger and healthier than I am now. I wrongly doubted my kale plants, I won’t make the same mistake with myself.