Knowledge is a calming thing

[mamadeb]

One of the first things I did, knowing who and what I am, was find and download a diabetes monitoring program that coordinates between my desktop and my pda.

I knew that entering the data (the food I've eaten, the exercise, the blood glucose readings) into electronic form would be motivating and interesting, and that was why I did it. And it has been.

What I didn't know was that it would also make things less stressful. I take a reading, say, and it looks high. "It's never been this high at this point," I think. And then I enter it into the pda and have the program tell me what my other readings have been this time of day. And I can see it's the same or in the same category or even *lower* than other readings and I feel better. I can't keep track of all this in my head, so it helps. (My glucometer, like all of them these days, records readings as well, so I can check back on Shabbat. I can take readings on Shabbat - I just can't record them myself.)

And I get to play with what and how the information is repeated, and see graphs and...it helps a lot.