Monday, May 13, 2013

Diabetes Blog Week – Share and Don’t Share


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?


This is a very hard topic for me. I’m a very open person and share pretty much everything with my diabetes team. There are two things though that they don’t see.

The first is something that I choose not to share and is probably pretty common. I don’t always tell my team about my bad food choices. Or at least how often or how much I eat them. My name is Erin, and I’m a carboholic. I LOVE sweets. I LOVE bread. I LOVE Fruit. I LOVE chips, pretzels, and anything else salty. It’s a real struggle for me to limit my choices which is probably why I’m at the weight I am. My team is very aware of the fact that I’m overweight. They weigh me every time I come in so I’m probably fooling myself that they don’t know. I still pretend they don’t know though as it makes me feel less guilty.

The second item that they don’t see but I would love for them to be a part of is the frustration. They get a little bit of it during my visits especially when we’re talking about an especially irritating issue but they don’t “see” it. They won’t experience it with me. They don’t see the times when it makes me cry. They’re not in my head while I run every possible scenario for hours. They don’t see when I can’t concentrate on work. They don’t see me snap at my husband or son when I’m having a low. They just don’t see, they only hear.

3 comments:

  1. I agree that if they could see the daily frustrations and the emotional rollercoaster that is diabetes this would help them understand us so much better! Out of interest, who is your team?

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    1. Dr. MacDonald and my CDE is Leona.I love both of them.

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    2. I'm with you on both - especially since I'm eating chips as I read this post (ssssshhh don't tell my endo).

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