1. Diabetes:
In a word, FRUSTRATING. I had a really bad experience with the doctor who initially diagnosed me and had to change doctors due to what I can only describe as incompetence. And to be fair, a MASSIVE language barrier. The final straw came when I questioned him on the drug he put me on in relation to the drug my Cardiologist has me on in regard to potential drug interactions. (With a dead sister and cousin, I feel it is my responsibility to ensure that all drugs which enter into MY body can exist harmoniously!) When I told him I found literature on the drug makers website that urged 'extreme caution' when combining these two particular drugs, he reacted in a way that I would say was a little less than professional. He called me (and my sweet husband) liars. Said that if we wanted to question his recommendations that we needed to go to medical school. He then said he believed the majority of my problems where emotional and I should just sit my husband down and say 'I need you to LISTEN to me so I stop acting out with imagined medical conditions!' (As if heart disease and Diabetes can be faked!) He then recommended that I take it easy for a couple of weeks and talk with friends and cook a little. OH!!! And the best part was 'You worry too much! It is not your job to worry about your health, that is for me and your husband to worry about!'
AAUUGGHHHH!!! I couldn't believe it! Was this for real?? I looked closely at the plants and paintings in search of the hidden cameras, fully expecting Ashton Kutcher to burst into the room and say 'You got PUNKED!!' But sadly, no, this doctor was 100 percent serious about what he was saying to me. 2005 and I was being told my health problems were imagined due to emotional imbalance and I needed to be a good wife and just cook and chat with friends while my husband worried about my health.
I smiled politely and HIGH-TAILED it out of there and promptly found a new doctor who politely listened to the whole sordid tale and at it's conclusion shook his head in silent disgust and said 'I am so very sorry you had to go through that.'
I felt justified and cleansed. When a medical professional casts dispersions on your character, no matter how ridiculos his rantings, it really does mess with you a little bit.
So, I love my new doctor. He suggested that we just start over. So we did. Based on my blood work he didn't think things looked right. My first A1C test with him was 6.2, 3 weeks later he took another A1C test and it was 5.1. He promptly took me off the Amaryl that the previously mentioned doctor had put me on. Either the Amaryl was causing me to have bouts of super low hypo-glycemia that was driving my A1c number down, or I was having really high high's and really low low's that were balancing each other out. He also wanted to test my pancreas for Insulin output to determine whether or not I could be a Mild Type 1 Diabetic. Started me on Glucophage, which is much better for me than Amaryl, and all and all made me feel like a human being again! I love my new doctor!
So, as of today, I am still a Type 2. My insulin production is on the low end of normal. I am not producing extra insulin like most Type 2's, so we are doing further research. Medically it has been an interesting 2 months.
Now, what have we learned today??
- It is NEVER ok for a doctor to talk to you like you are insane.
- It is ALWAYS ok for you to do independent research on your own and to ask your doctor about it.
- You must ALWAYS do whatever it takes to FULLY understand ANY diagnoses you recieve from a doctor.
And finally, and I believe most importantly:
- OWN your disease..Do NOT let it own you!!! Our identity should not be defined by being diseased, but rather by how we LIVE with that particular disease. In the end, it's all about living. Living well. Living completly. Living. Period.
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