T Minus Two Type Two Diabetes and Other Passions

One Thing to Improve: Reading

Today’s prompt for Diabetes Blog Week asks us to identify something we could improve on in our diabetes management.

Mine is not reading enough. In two different ways, no less.

(“Mom, doesn’t this guy have a Masters in Library Science? And doesn’t he have a job in a library, even though it’s not as a librarian?” “I’m a bit confused, too, Son. Let’s see how he explains his sorry self.”)

The first way in which I don’t read enough is that I’m really bad about reading my fellow diabetes bloggers. Thus, I miss out on the inspiration and information my counterparts offer and I also miss out on the ideas for posts of my own. Plus, I kind of feel that I’m not holding up my end of an unspoken bargain: I love being read and I love getting comments, but I read few posts and comment on even fewer. I suppose I probably read ten to twenty posts a week. I recognize that it’s become impossible to read all the diabetes blogs (and that’s an excellent thing), but I could and should be doing better.

I also don’t read enough about diabetes. While I’ve never wanted to be the sort of blogger who educates on the medical end of things, I’d like to know more of the science and current treatments both for my own understanding and because I’d occasionally like to use a greater knowledge base to back up a point I want to make.  I really admire those bloggers with a good grasp of disease mechanisms and treatments.

For forty years I read books voraciously. The last few years, though, I’ve read very little long-form prose. This may be from spending my days reading and composing emails, it may be increased involvement in social media, or it may be somehow related to aging. Whatever it is, it grieves me somewhat. And, whatever it is, I need to find ways to step it up.