After starting my first full time salaried job (about 1.5 years ago) and settling in…I decided to get serious about managing diabetes… since due to various reasons/issues (excuses?) I’ve done very little except to get through the days w/o too much disruption to those around me…not really caring about the long term impact…one of the things I first decided to do was to start seeing a doctor regularly and so after seeing the GP…got referred to an endocrinologist (or rather an endocrinology department)… which has ended up being one of my worst experiences…and made me realize how much of an impact the physician can have (or not)… the last doctor I remember enjoying was when I was first diagnosed…and since then…ehh
One I saw when I was 12…and I remember vividly being asked if I understood how serious diabetes was and all the possible complications that could arise…and that it was something that would absolutely never, ever go away (with the implied though "if you manage to live that long)… which is all true…but pretty rough being at that age…and I was already someone with a natural tendency to sometimes get too pessissmistic or depressed…and it always felt like some sort of test going there of how good…which when you equate high with being a bad person you don’t really want to test…
More recently, I still get that feeling…I had also felt that because I hadn’t brought a log with me I was instantly labeled noncompliant, unwilling to change, or too stupid to know anything about it …what makes it worse is that it’s a teaching place so you actually discuss most of your issues with the trainee who then relays the info to the doctor… the next time I came in I had had blood work and the A1C was high…but he barely looked at my log book because I hadn’t checked every day 6 times a day… and his only counsel was to come back in 3 months and the parting comment of those who want good control test 6-8 times a day… so less than that is no good, I guess…
3rd visit I test more than 6-8 times a day but didn’t have it organized the way he wanted (because I don’t eat 3 meals a day at the same time if I do eat them…) and I started getting obsessed and everytime I felt weird I wanted to know if it was cause i was high or low…but he decided these were too difficult to look at (didn’t even try) and instead suggested I do basal testing (which he could/should have done at the first visit I think…and rather than seeing if I understood his breif explanation (he started talking to his assistant and just left the room)…luckily I’ve done it before and there’s a lot of stuff on the web…esp. cause his explanation was not entirely correct nor complete… (stop eating at 7 and test every so often until 2pm the following day…)
This whole experience has been soooo frustrating and 辛い(tsurai)…but also because he doesn’t seem to care what is happening to me outside of my numbers (things that could be affecting them) equally frustrating has been the lack of people to talk this through with… or lack of response/support from those I did try talking too…
Here’s hoping that the next one will at least listen…