D-Blog Week: Share and Don’t Share

Last year, I double-timed it for D-Blog Week. This year, I’ll see what I can do.

Often our health care team only sees us for about 15 minutes several times a year, and they might not have a sense of what our lives are really like. Today, let’s pretend our medical team is reading our blogs. What do you wish they could see about your and/or your loved one’s daily life with diabetes? On the other hand, what do you hope they don’t see?  (Thanks to Melissa Lee of Sweetly Voiced for this topic suggestion.)

When I go to any of my doctors, I feel like I turn into “super patient” and answer all questions precisely as if I’m being tested and just let the medicals lead the appointment. I’m married to a man with “white coat syndrome” so I know that’s not my issue, my issue is that I need to take control of my appointments. I did better at my last endocrinologist appointment, when I started a sentence with “while we’re talking, I need to ask you about travelling.”

I try to schedule my appointments online so it’s handy that I can type into the comments/reason for appointment box what I need to talk about and it ends up on my chart… whether or not that gets seen before I do, I don’t know.

Look at that! I’ve already strayed from the prompt!

What I wish they could see.

I wish they could see the life around my numbers. I mentioned about a year ago that I had an issue with a resident fixating on a string of low numbers and kept trying to change my basal programs to avoid them and somehow she didn’t understand they were outliers (because three days with lows in a row couldn’t be an outlier when you’re painting an entire house!). I explained over, and over, and over that those were not normal numbers. At that very point in time I wished I could snap her back to those days movie style so she could watch not only how active I was, how on top of treating those lows I was.

I wish that my healthcare team could see the things that I may not think to tell them about. I’m “new” at this whole living with diabetes thing and don’t always identify things they should know about. Although I doubt they should know about my sore neck from sleeping oddly, but I bet they should know about the tingly feeling in my hands that I only get in the mornings.

What I don’t want them to see.

I try to be super patient. I completely fail. I don’t want them to see that I tend to review my trends directly before an appointment. I don’t want them to see that I treated a low with thin mints. I don’t want them to see that I failed at swagging that stupid airport sandwich and spiked to 240 while at 30,000 feet.

I definitely don’t want them to see that I don’t change my lancet every time I test… or every day for that fact.

On the other side of things, I don’t want them to know that I’m sometimes ashamed of being a “good diabetic.” Yes, I just said that. I blush and want to change the subject when someone in my life comments on not knowing anyone who manages diabetes better than I do, who uses me as an example of staying on top of my health or when a friend who works at a nursing home said “Thank you for being responsible with your diabetes. I work with people who aren’t and it makes me feel better to know you won’t be one of them some day.” In the back of my mind those bad days, bad numbers and bad choices live and pop out when I get complimented on my health. I don’t want my doctors to know that sometimes I’m not proud to share that I’m doing well… or that I don’t always recognize when I’m doing well.