February 28th is Rare Disease Day. In order for a disease to be considered rare, it must impact fewer than 200,000 Americans at a time. Often times rare diseases are invisible so you may not know that a person is suffering. However, through these diseases, we gain important life skills and learn lessons.

1. Obedience

When you have an injury or a surgery there is a good chance that you have limitations. These limitations are given to you for a reason so that you do not hurt yourself. By always having to follow doctor's orders you learn the value of following rules.

2. Time Management

Whether we miss school for an appointment or have to do our homework around our medication doses we learn how to manage our time. We understand that some tasks will take us looker than people without a disease.

3.We Know How to Handle Bad News

As sad as this may sound when you have a chronic illness, you are used to hearing things you do not want to hear. Going into every followup appointment I know there is a chance of something going wrong but hope that something good will happen.

4. But we also try to stay optimistic in every situation

Going back to what I said previously, even if we receive bad news at an appointment we try to be happy that we caught it sooner than later. We often think of our diseases as motivation to work harder than ever.

5. One of the hardest things for us is to suddenly turn down plans because we are in pain

When we genuinely tell you that we are not feeling well, we are telling you the truth. When our disease is rare we often do not know what is causing the pain. Although we are pretty tolerant when it comes to pain sometimes it is unbearable.

6. We Highly Value Relationships

When you have a rare disease having a support system full of family, close friends, and partners is important. Sometimes they are the only people you have when the whole world seems that it is against you.