When you know no one is listening

You hear it all the time "Your as good as the effort you put in and from the help you receive from the professionals you engage to be on your team." You would think that the doctors and specialists would  be some of the most important of all the players on the support team however I am hearing more and more around the frustration that T1's are feeling from specialists and doctors either not caring or not listening to the opinion and views of the people who live with this disease. For those who care and work hard you would know the ins and outs of what works for you and would be the best resource that the specialists have.

To me I try to learn from what I do and try to find out all I can about this disease. What I look for, and in some respects see it as a job interview where I am the employer, in a specialist is someone that will work with me and listen to what my views are. I have had the scenario in the past where I have had specialists who think they know best and because they have read a book and have been tested in it then they know absolutely everything there is to know about living with T1.

I will never say that I know everything and actually very far from it but to have a support person tell you it is their way and their way only only makes me stop listening and I loose respect for what their experience is.

I am not sure why doctors and specialists get this way but I presume that it could be because of the ratio of T1's they deal with compared to T2's and also the amount of people who take the management for granted and spend a long time in denial. That said there is still a lot of highly managed T1's who see the benefit and the drive to do the best they can.

I was lucky to find an endocrinologists who helped me understand everything I needed to and teach me how to manage things myself. I would attend appointments and instead of telling me what I had to do he would ask me what I thought the problem areas were and how I thought I would fix it. After listening we would go through the results and he would either approve of the amendments of offer slight suggestions as to what could be other reasons or what methods could be better off. I put it to this help that I have gotten through 23 years relatively un-scathed. There were times where I would miss appointments and sometimes go months with out visits and even though I would feel the guilt about not attending it was never judged or even mentioned. All he was there for was my health and well being and I felt he understood that even though T1 is a big part of life it is still only a part and it needs to fit in with life rather than the other way around.

With hesitant feelings I recently moved interstate and away from my endo and lucky to me I have found another, recently out of uni, who sees the work that has gone into my life and feels that he is also their for support and suggestions through consultation.

When no one is listening along this journey it is very difficult to listen to yourself and your body. The ability to have good control is difficult and the rate of diabetes burnout would be great. As I said in the start "your only as good ad the effort you put in and from the help you receive from the professionals you engage on your team" but sometimes it just takes some extra time and effort to find the right team.