Follow-up to the follow-up
Don't you hate it when you imagine a really unpleasant, frustrating and maddening experience coming to pass, and then the actual experience turns out to be every bit as awful as you imagined it?
And don't you love it when it doesn't?
Sometimes I do get what I want. I love it when that happens. No, he did not tell me he'd made a mistake and I'm not really diabetic. But he was warm and sympathetic, spent extra time answering my many questions, passed my self-styled and highly rigorous "pop quiz for diabetes doctors" with flying colors, oohed and aahed over my miraculous record-keeping abilities and the numbers (and colors!) on my meticulous charts, and congratulated me on making such great progress in just one month. The cherry on top is that my numbers are good enough that he doesn't think we need to increase my medication, so I won't be revisiting all that excruciating cramping and bloating – hooray!
I'm actually really relieved that I'm not going to have to change doctors. I don't want to have to find time to interview every single doctor in town. Not that that's a lot – there are actually only eight doctors to choose from in my insurance plan, unless I want to travel at least 40 minutes every time I have to see someone, which I do not. The whole reason I chose this guy in the first place was because I've known him for about ten years (we volunteer for some of the same organizations), and liked him on a personal level. Maybe what I saw as an unnecessarily brisk, dismissive attitude at my last appointment was really just his way of trying to let me know there was no need to totally freak out about my diagnosis ... I dunno. Anyway, I'm glad he approved of me today, and that I approved of him. I feel a lot better about the relationship now.
The visit was not all champagne and roses, however. One of the aggravating things I found out is that the scale we have at home is even more inaccurate than I realized. I've still lost about the same amount of weight I thought I'd lost, but as it turns out, my total weight is actually about 12 lbs. more than I thought it was! That was discouraging. But – I'm going to focus on pounds lost, not pounds to begin with, and even though I now know I have even a little farther to go than I had thought, I have made a good start, and will continue to work on it. That's really all I can do, anyway.
He agreed with me that 105 is not a realistic weight for me. We decided to start by shooting for the top end of the BMI scale, and if I want to make my goal even lower at some point in the future, he said he would feel okay about having me go as low as about 125. That sounds fine to me.
Another thing, which really has nothing at all to do with me except that it does sort of give me a different perspective on all my own health issues, is that a friend I've just been getting to know and like very much was just diagnosed yesterday with Cushing's Syndrome. She had gestational diabetes when she was pregnant with her two-year-old, and had been worried she might be moving toward Type 2 diabetes. But that isn't what's going on with her. Also, my cousin's wife was diagnosed a month or so ago with Addison's Disease. And a woman I used to work with found out recently that her 11-year-old daughter has juvenile diabetes. She was in a coma in the children's hospital in Oakland for almost a week.
So yeah. Not that I take any comfort in other people's suffering, but it does feel good to remember that just like we all have things to deal with, we also all have unique ways we're able to help each other through life. I wrote awhile ago about a documentary I'd seen about the 1918 influenza epidemic, and how I felt sort of insulted to think that I might someday have to suffer the indignity of a miserable death from some similar disease, like the bird flu. How could someone so intelligent and modern and strong and kind as me, possibly be subject to such an ignominious condition? It's sort of the same way I felt about my diabetes diagnosis. Moi? C'est impossible! It's gotta be some kind of mistake.
Lately though I've been realizing that what I felt wasn't really so much about diabetes, as it was about being forced to look a lot more closely at the fact that someday I really am going to die. The fact that I'm now "officially" much more likely to die of a heart attack or stroke doesn't change the fact that I would have died someday, of something, anyway. And in fact, knowing now that my risks for those things are so much higher than the average person, I may be able to do more to lower my risks than if I'd never been diagnosed, or even become diabetic in the first place.
I'm not totally clear on what I'm trying to say here. I guess just that I think it's interesting that I'm one of the least in-denial-about-death people I know, and now I have this condition I have to deal with every day for the rest of my life – my Actual LIFE, the only one I have – a condition that sort of shoves the idea back in my face again – this idea I've never really tried to deny or avoid anyway – the idea, the understanding, that this body is not forever, someday you have to leave it, someday I and every other living thing on this planet really will die.
Somehow, with those three friends of mine dying this spring, and various others preparing to die all around me (the Jeeps is still hanging in there, at least for now), maybe finding out my own health was in crisis felt like a bigger deal to me than it might have under other circumstances.
But I'm not dead yet! Nor even dying. So that's good, right?
Man, enough with the death & decay talk already! It's spring, and I am now officially moving on to other topics.
And don't you love it when it doesn't?
Sometimes I do get what I want. I love it when that happens. No, he did not tell me he'd made a mistake and I'm not really diabetic. But he was warm and sympathetic, spent extra time answering my many questions, passed my self-styled and highly rigorous "pop quiz for diabetes doctors" with flying colors, oohed and aahed over my miraculous record-keeping abilities and the numbers (and colors!) on my meticulous charts, and congratulated me on making such great progress in just one month. The cherry on top is that my numbers are good enough that he doesn't think we need to increase my medication, so I won't be revisiting all that excruciating cramping and bloating – hooray!
I'm actually really relieved that I'm not going to have to change doctors. I don't want to have to find time to interview every single doctor in town. Not that that's a lot – there are actually only eight doctors to choose from in my insurance plan, unless I want to travel at least 40 minutes every time I have to see someone, which I do not. The whole reason I chose this guy in the first place was because I've known him for about ten years (we volunteer for some of the same organizations), and liked him on a personal level. Maybe what I saw as an unnecessarily brisk, dismissive attitude at my last appointment was really just his way of trying to let me know there was no need to totally freak out about my diagnosis ... I dunno. Anyway, I'm glad he approved of me today, and that I approved of him. I feel a lot better about the relationship now.
The visit was not all champagne and roses, however. One of the aggravating things I found out is that the scale we have at home is even more inaccurate than I realized. I've still lost about the same amount of weight I thought I'd lost, but as it turns out, my total weight is actually about 12 lbs. more than I thought it was! That was discouraging. But – I'm going to focus on pounds lost, not pounds to begin with, and even though I now know I have even a little farther to go than I had thought, I have made a good start, and will continue to work on it. That's really all I can do, anyway.
He agreed with me that 105 is not a realistic weight for me. We decided to start by shooting for the top end of the BMI scale, and if I want to make my goal even lower at some point in the future, he said he would feel okay about having me go as low as about 125. That sounds fine to me.
Another thing, which really has nothing at all to do with me except that it does sort of give me a different perspective on all my own health issues, is that a friend I've just been getting to know and like very much was just diagnosed yesterday with Cushing's Syndrome. She had gestational diabetes when she was pregnant with her two-year-old, and had been worried she might be moving toward Type 2 diabetes. But that isn't what's going on with her. Also, my cousin's wife was diagnosed a month or so ago with Addison's Disease. And a woman I used to work with found out recently that her 11-year-old daughter has juvenile diabetes. She was in a coma in the children's hospital in Oakland for almost a week.
So yeah. Not that I take any comfort in other people's suffering, but it does feel good to remember that just like we all have things to deal with, we also all have unique ways we're able to help each other through life. I wrote awhile ago about a documentary I'd seen about the 1918 influenza epidemic, and how I felt sort of insulted to think that I might someday have to suffer the indignity of a miserable death from some similar disease, like the bird flu. How could someone so intelligent and modern and strong and kind as me, possibly be subject to such an ignominious condition? It's sort of the same way I felt about my diabetes diagnosis. Moi? C'est impossible! It's gotta be some kind of mistake.
Lately though I've been realizing that what I felt wasn't really so much about diabetes, as it was about being forced to look a lot more closely at the fact that someday I really am going to die. The fact that I'm now "officially" much more likely to die of a heart attack or stroke doesn't change the fact that I would have died someday, of something, anyway. And in fact, knowing now that my risks for those things are so much higher than the average person, I may be able to do more to lower my risks than if I'd never been diagnosed, or even become diabetic in the first place.
I'm not totally clear on what I'm trying to say here. I guess just that I think it's interesting that I'm one of the least in-denial-about-death people I know, and now I have this condition I have to deal with every day for the rest of my life – my Actual LIFE, the only one I have – a condition that sort of shoves the idea back in my face again – this idea I've never really tried to deny or avoid anyway – the idea, the understanding, that this body is not forever, someday you have to leave it, someday I and every other living thing on this planet really will die.
Somehow, with those three friends of mine dying this spring, and various others preparing to die all around me (the Jeeps is still hanging in there, at least for now), maybe finding out my own health was in crisis felt like a bigger deal to me than it might have under other circumstances.
But I'm not dead yet! Nor even dying. So that's good, right?
Man, enough with the death & decay talk already! It's spring, and I am now officially moving on to other topics.
Labels: diabetes
2 Comments:
Thanks for moving onto spring! I was about to end it all.
I'm so impressed your doctor showed an entirely different face, and I'm glad you don't have to find another!
The whole how much you weigh thing is weird. I'm always told that weight training helps you lose weight, but muscle weighs more than fat . . . so maybe going just by the scale doesn't give you a full picture about your body . . . I 'm too tired to comment, I guess.
Woohoo! Way to go! You should be proud of yourself. Very proud. Glad to hear the doctor was better this time.
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