Do Doctors Really Know Best?

Do doctors really know best? Let me rephrase: Doctors don’t know best. It’s a bold statement, granted, but nevertheless true. Well occasionally. Now there is no doubt that they are ‘qualified’ to practice medicine, but can they really tell me about something that I’ve been living with every day for years? It makes sense really, telling a girl with three IVs in her arms and so drugged up on morphine that all she can think about is ‘Pasgetti’, that you know better than she does. Her mum quietly sat in the corner trying to shush her daughter and kindly saying ‘go on doctor’, and her dad still not quite understanding what diabetes is after eight long years. Here we go again, same old, same old. Yes, you stuck up old witch, I know how to set a temporary basal rate. Dad’s eyes going wide as these complex words are said, never before heard by a non-diabetic or someone who devotes their career to it, without any understanding of what they mean.

Honestly why do they think they know better? I’m not talking about the technical science that, really and truly, unless it’s going to cure me or make my everyday life easier, I don’t really care about. It’s the day to day things: “You know how to carb count right?” Sickly sweet smile on her face as she tilts her head ever so slightly towards a ‘Carbs And Cals’ guide book. “Thirty-three grams,” is the confident reply, a slight head tilt towards the Snickers bar on the ridiculously worn wooden table that don’t quite extend in height enough to fit over a hospital bed at a normal human height, so has to be mechanically dropped so it’s like you’re lying on the floor. “Hm” is the reply. Just hm. All it takes is one look at a plate of food, the taste of a single mouthful or a crumpled up old packet of crisps left at the bottom of your bag that had probably turned to salt and vinegar breadcrumbs (probably shouldn’t eat that anyway but who cares) and it’s no longer food, it’s a number, a ratio, an insulin fix.

Ninety-seven months and a week exactly since the day I was told needles would be my new best friend and my whole life would smell of an artificial medical elixir. Honestly it doesn’t bother me though. A 12-yearold shoveling cake in her mouth like the fat kid from Matilda with one hand and doing an injection in the other shocked people, but its normal, an everyday thing really.

“Right, so I’m going to change your ratio.” Let me stop you there, Miss Minimum Thirty-Four and a Half-Thousand a Year loudmouth. Have you asked what I think? Nope. At 3am my pump could start screaming and I can successfully fill it with insulin and change needle still pretty much asleep. Sugar goes low in the middle of Primark and you’ve got to sit on the floor in the middle of the shop with your mum feeding you Lucozade. Been there.

I’m not saying that doctors are wrong, I’m just saying that they should ask. Ask what you think should be done to improve things, or ask how things are going without being judgmental and patronising.

I honestly think people dealing with chronic conditions are amazing. Each and every day brings new struggles, and just like my sugar levels - they’re up and down! So many times I have actually said: “I don’t want to diabetes today, please don’t make me!” But I haven’t got a choice, the same way thousands of others don’t either. I don’t assume I know better than you about your life, so at least ask about what effects mine.