Diabetes Blog Week: Day One - Share and Don't Share

Today's D-Blog Week topic: 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?

When I blog, I write to an unknown audience. I regularly get about 200 hits per day on my blog. And yet I get comments from the same handful of people. Occasionally someone I don't know will post something but, otherwise, I have no real idea who is reading what I'm writing. 

I imagine other athletes are reading about my adventures the same way I read about theirs. I imagine that people with type 1 diabetes who are looking for information, support, new ideas or perhaps a bit of motivation visit my blog. In my more paranoid moments I imagine that Assistive Devices (the people who help cover the cost of my pump supplies) reads my blog to see if I change my infusion sites as often as I should. 

I also imagine, and secretly hope, that members of my medical team read my blog. I want them to and then I want them to click on my blogroll and read other blogs. Why? Because in the 15 minutes I spend in their office, I am a patient. I want them to see me as more than my diagnosis and more than the numbers in my logbook. I want them to know about the frustrating crazy rabbit diabetes days. I want them to know about the perfect blood sugar 20k run. I want them to know about the amount of time I spend training to run, bike and swim and the amount of time and energy I put into being healthy. 

I want them to know about the other amazing bloggers out there who are pushing the limits of what we are supposed to be able to do. I want them to read about the crazy contraptions and creative solutions people find to deal with diabetes challenges. I want them to know how scared people get before their appointments. How stressed they are and how a supportive, encouraging, non-judgemental medical team can make all the difference. 

I would love to know that my medical team starts their days by reading blogs written by members of the DOC. That they discuss interesting ones over lunch and talk about what they can say and how they can best support people based on what they read. And I would love it even more if they told other people they support about the DOC and encouraged them to find support there too. 

What I don't want them to know? 

I don't want them to know that I change my lancet about as often as I change the batteries in my smoke alarms. 

I don't want them to know that I fall back to sleep most night before I retest my blood sugar after a low. 

I don't want them to know that I get excited when I could drag my insulin and infusion sites out for a full seven days. 

But I guess if I want them to read my blog every day, fair is fair. They're going to get the good, the bad and the non-compliant. 

I'm ok with that.