D-Blog Week - Day Two: Letter Writing Day

Today’s brief: In February the Wego Blog Carnival asked participants to write letters to their condition. You can write a letter to diabetes if you’d like, but we can also take it one step further. How about writing a letter to a fictional (or not so fictional) endocrinologist telling the doctor what you love (or not) about them. How about a letter to a pretend (or again, not so pretend) meter or pump company telling them of the device of your dreams? Maybe you’d like to write a letter to your child with diabetes. Or a letter from your adult self to the d-child you were. Whomever you choose as a recipient, today is the day to tell them what you are feeling.

If you've read my blog before you'll know a little about the person I've chosen to write to today. He's the doctor who turned my diabetes management around, not by preaching to me or telling me things I didn't already know, but by inspiring me to do better and supporting me every step of the way...

Dear Dr Inspiring,

Thank you.

I met you for the first time in January 2010, when I was referred to your pre-pregnancy clinic for diabetics. I’ve seen a lot of specialists in my time, and in 16 years of having this disease I’ve rarely had the opportunity to see the same doctor twice – a consequence of the way my previous hospital diabetes clinic was set up. I’ve seen you consistently since I started trying for a baby and throughout my pregnancy. I’ve seen good doctors and bad doctors in my time as a PWD, but you have been the most inspiring. Why? Because you understand. You know that living with diabetes is only part science, and that there’s an art to it too. You realise that whilst there are things I can control – carbs, food, insulin, exercise – there are also things that I can’t – stress, hormones, illness, and the random crap that life sometimes throws at us all. You don’t assign blame, or suggest that I should work harder, you just work with me to find things that I can improve, and support me to do this. You talk with me like an equal and don’t patronise me.

You go the extra mile – I’ve never before had a doctor give me their telephone number and tell me to call if I need to, and I nearly fell out of the bed when I was in hospital being induced and you gave me your home number and told me to call you at 10pm with my blood glucose reading so we could assess what doses I’d need! Finally you trusted me to manage my own diabetes whilst I was in labour and didn’t insist that I go on a sliding scale. That meant a huge amount to me, and I hope you feel your trust was borne out since I didn’t go above 8 mmol/l throughout the whole of my ten and a half hour labour, and was mostly in range between 4 mmol/l and 6 mmol/l (what happened during my emergency c-section I don’t know!) The fact that you telephoned the hospital on your day off to see how I was doing during my labour (more than once) speaks volumes about your commitment to your job, and I know that the diabetic ladies of North Bristol are lucky to have you!

Once again Dr Inspiring, thank you. You know that I’ve been blogging about my pregnancy anonymously, and on the off-chance that you ever find this blog and read my letter, I hope you’ll recognise yourself as Dr Inspiring.

My husband, my son and I owe you an incredible debt.

a.k.a Dia…Betty.