#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.

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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?