“Hello Molly,

You have a new message in MyChart! Please sign in to read your message.”

Whenever this notification pops up in my inbox, I’m filled with a sense of dread because it usually means one of 3 things: 1) I owe money to one of my doctors’ offices, 2) I have an upcoming medical appointment that I forgot about, or 3) There’s a problem with one of my prescriptions and my doctor’s office needs more information from me.

I never would’ve accounted for a fourth possible scenario, one that makes me feel good as a patient, being remotely likely…until it actually happened to me.

The message in question was from my diabetes nurse practitioner, and she wrote to me asking if I could recommend any diabetes support groups to another patient with T1D who was roughly my age. She explained that she thought to ask me because she knew that I have this blog/platform and remembered that I’ve spoken about how the diabetes community has greatly helped me over the years.

Upon reading the message, I immediately felt flattered that she thought to ask me. I typed up a thoughtful reply, including several different resources that might meet the patients’ needs, and sent it, feeling totally awestruck over how trust was definitely a two-way street in this particular HCP/patient relationship. It means a lot to me that my NP trusted my recommendations enough to not only want to pass them along to another patient, but to reach out and ask me for them in the first place. While my current overall healthcare team is lacking in some major ways – I won’t get into details on that, but let’s just say the search for a couple of new physicians is one that I’ll reluctantly embark on soon – this is reassurance that I do still have allies working for (and with) me. And that’s a really great feeling.