#DBlogWeek ’13 – Day 3 – How I met your mother
(Or, more accurately: How my mother met your mother)
It’s Diabetes Blog Week again! For the next five days, Karen , author of Bitter-Sweet diabetes, will tell me what to write about. (She did this last year, too). Today, she wants me to write about a memorable diabetes day. I don’t know if this one is my MOST memorable, especially since the most significant diabetes-events tend to be the ones where I’m in no capacity to remember things, but here goes…
This happened over ten years ago. Add old-age to hospital-grade hypoglycemia, and memories get hazy, but I’ll do my best.
Back then, I was living alone in a second floor apartment in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA. I was dating a girl who lived on the outskirts of Queens, NY. Because of the distance between us, we only saw each other on weekends – and the “dates” usually included an overnight stay.
Don’t judge.
#DBlogWeek ’13 – Day 2 – Petitioning the FDA
It’s Diabetes Blog Week again! For the next six days, I’ll be participating in the Fourth Annual Diabetes Blog Week (my second; you can find last year’s posts here). I’ll be taking cues from Karen and her assembled guest topic-suggesters Bitter-Sweet Diabetes.
Today’s Prompt: Recently various petitions have been circulating the Diabetes Online Community, so today let’s pretend to write our own. Tell us who you would write the petition to – a person, an organization, even an object (animate or inanimate) – get creative!! What are you trying to change and what have you experienced that makes you want this change?
NOTE: This is not a real petition. I suppose it could become one, but without credible citations and fact-checking, it is nothing more than my own airing of personal grievances.
#DBlogWeek ’13 – Day 1 – Sharing is caring
It’s Diabetes Blog Week again! For the next seven days, I’ll be unoriginal participating in the Fourth Annual Diabetes Blog Week (my second; you can find last year’s posts here) and writing about a variety of topics that I otherwise wouldn’t have approached. Lots of other diabetes bloggers will be too, and you can learn all about it on this post at Bitter-Sweet Diabetes.
Today’s Prompt: 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?
(Lets just disregard that earlier post about doctors being part of our team, shall we?)
Well, my doctor really seems to be quite informed and aware when it comes to diabetes. I don’t feel the need for him to better understand or sympathize what my life is like, nor do I feel like I need to hide anything from him. I’m generally an easygoing person and I accept whatever life throws at me, and I keep my emotions – for the most part – private.
So let me start with the second part first. What don’t I want him to see? Well – the rest of my family. It’s not that I’m ashamed of them or anything — in fact it’s just the opposite. I’m proud of them and love to brag about them. But I don’t want them to have a reason to see my endocrinologist. I don’t want to, ever again, be in such a position where a doctor and a loved one need to jointly figure out what to do with me. And I certainly don’t want them to be in a position where an endocrinologist needs to care for them! (but if they are, Dr. M gets my recommendation).
My doctor is well educated, both in theory and in practice. It was in his office where I learned about the three-day lifespan of a Medtronic sensor and the “loophole” that some people apparently use to circumvent it. He encouraged me to try a Super Bolus, whereas most other endocrinologists probably never heard of such a thing. He also told me a bit about the methods and findings in the LGS (Low Glucose Suspend) clinical trials.
The guy is connected.
So here’s what I wish he knew about me: I want to be connected too (speaking figuratively — though being literally connected to an insulin pump is OK too).
Who does he know at Medtronic? How do patient experiences/preferences/frustrations get communicated up the chain for consideration in future products? How can my voice be heard – and valued – by someone other than the phone rep who guides me through the Motor Error troubleshooting steps (just did that fifteen minutes ago, by the way)?
Does he have any connections at Novo Nordisk or Sanofi? Both of them have their US headquarters in our state; Sanofi is in our very county. LifeScan is in faraway California and Animas is in not-so-faraway Pennsylvania, but their parent company Johnson and Johnson is right here in New Jersey. So is BD. Surely there are forums, symposiums, or people that he’s participated in, and perhaps I could too, to learn more.
I’m not one of those thrice-a-year diabetics, who takes fifteen minutes out of every few months to learn something new. I’m looking to learn all the time — and learning is not only about what you know, it’s who you know. Knowing the diabetes-online-community helps me to know a lot. But I’d still love to know more. You know?
It’s wiggity, wiggity, wiggity wack
How does the model keep the transmitter from flopping around without IV3000?
Source: Medtronic PR photo
After writing yesterday’s post, I had some time for some more rational thought, and I remembered the reasons I use the suite of diabetes devices that I do.
- The meter automatically sends my BG’s to the pump
- The meter automatically sends my BG’s to the CGM
- The CGM is built-in to the pump
- The meter is small, accurate, and uses little blood.
- The buttons don’t fall off.
These features are important to me.
How to piss off a customer
When it comes to customer service, the biggest sin you can commit is to not resolve a complaint after the first phone call. (Unless you’re an insurance company — they operate under a different set of rules. But I’m not angry with them today).
I am upset with two companies right now. And as hard as I’m trying to resist, I think I’m going to name names (I’ve already concluded, back in December, that they don’t like me).
