Well, after speaking to a 2nd CDE at my endo’s office on Thursday and Friday, my 1st CDE game me a call on Monday afternoon (this was after not returning a call from the previous Tuesday). I had spoken to the office manager on Thursday, expressed my frustration, and was told she’d talk to the 1st one. The manager hadn’t spoken to her by the time I was called, so I told her that I was frustrated because she hadn’t returned my call on Tuesday and no one else had picked up her messages.
Her classic response? “Scott, you have honestly been getting more hand holding than most of our other patients. It comes down to you taking some responsibility for yourself”. I cut her off and explained that I knew very well my health was my responsibility and was about to just lay into her, but I decided that this situation was not worth getting angry over or trying to save. I just stopped and said “Your response to that makes this an easy decision. You’re fired and I guess I’ll be getting a new endo as well. Thanks”. Honestly, think she was actually speechless when I said that, but I just hung up.
From my perspective:
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This was the 2nd time she had not returned a call since Oct 31. I was trained on that Friday and she did not return a call on the following Monday.
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I had been having incredible problems with insertion sets, which seemed to be solved by the switch from Humalog to Novalog.
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That change happened right before Thanksgiving and I had not spoken to her since
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I had been having so many problems that I honestly don’t feel that I have the knowledge yet to make changes I need. I’m still very uncomfortable making changes to basals, ratios, etc… I don’t think I ever had a “stable” place to start from before, hopefully I do now.
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When I heard her response, my first thought was “so, it’s my fault you didn’t return my call?”.
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She’s supposed to be setting my expectations on what to expect from her, she had certainly never before suggested anything like “I’d like to see you do this yourself for a week, making the changes you need and we’ll look at it next week.” Heck, I would have had no problem with that.
You know, I know I can be a real pain in the rear. I’m stubborn, arrogant and honestly just have very little tolerance anymore for BS or having my time wasted. I have very high expectations for projects and I like to get them done. From the doctor’s appointment where we first talked about pumping, I had a pump in my hands in less than two weeks, approved by insurance. I expect this to work, or I would not have even tried. I am doing it so I can live a better, longer life, and I’m not being responsible enough.
Are my expectations too high? Have other people had this many problems getting started pumping?
Anyway, I called another endo this afternoon and hopefully I’ll be able to get in with a another CDE in a week or so.
Whew, felt good to vent… thanks to everyone here who has given me support these last few weeks. The support and reading of other peoples stories and experiences have been a great help to me.
Scott