So, just when I thought I had finally found a good endo for me, all heck breaks loose in 2 hours and I find out just how good of an endo she really is…
So, it all happend this past Friday (5/22). Had just had a good checkup at the “female” doctor. No, I’m not preggo. So, afterwards, my hubby and I went for a nice lunch before I headed back to the office. Finished up my day there and came home around 6-ish and we decided to have our weekly “night out” and to stop by sister-in-law’s house. We ate at iHop, which is my most favoritest place in the whole wide world, but also my most difficult to bolus for. But I figured, hey, what the heck. We haven’t eaten here in MONTHS (used to be an every other week or so thing for us) and I’ll get something good. So, I checked bg… 286! Wowo! I musta misfigured how many carbs was in lunch! Geez! So, I figured up my carbs and let my Omnipod PDM do it’s thing to figure in the correction bolus. So, I went ahead with my plans to eat pancakes and drink coffee since I thought I’d be okay bolusing as soon as we were seated. It’s usually a good 30 minutes from seating to ordering to receiving food for us, so I thought I’d be in the clear. I sat and enjoyed my coffee and strawberry cheesecake pancakes with sausage. (See, this is why we don’t eat here very often. I use it as my “enjoy REAL food” night, and it gets me in trouble for a couple of hours most of the time.)
We finished up our lovely meal, and headed to my sis in law’s house. She wasn’t home yet, so my hubby and I waited outside for a while for her to get there… I’d guess about an hour. She got there and we went inside and played a few games on the gamecube. Soon, I got very sick. I thought, “man, this doesn’t feel right!” so I checked my bg and lo and behold, it flashed “HIGH - CHECK KEYTONES”. I said, surely I must have some syrup on my fingers, let me wash them and recheck, but alas, no, still got the same “HIGH” warning. So I looked at my site. Well, there was the problem right there. The cannula had come out sometime, probably earlier that afternoon since I was high before supper. I got my hubby and we started the half hour drive home.
Halfway home, I got REALLY sick. I felt like I would hurl any moment. And after always being taught “high bg+throwing up=ER… stat!” We turned around and went straight for the ER where my endocrinologist is associated. I got there and the wating room was PACKED full. I went to the front and explained that I am a diabetic with an extremely high glucose and needed to see a doctor soon because I was getting nauseas. The receptionist rolled her eyes at me and explained that there was a 2 hour wait and I would just have to wait my turn. I asked her if she would at least give me a number that I could reach my endo at since I knew she wasn’t at her office at this hour. (I had already tried even tho I knew there’d be no chance at 11pm so I figured the after hours service could page her, but we had no answer) She laughed, rolled her eyes and smirked “well, have you even tried looking her up in the PHONE BOOK? I’m SURE her home number would be listed…” then turned to the nurse standing behind her and laughed and rolled her eyes again and asked her what she needed. I got MAD! I told her that “I didn’t try to look her up because we were too busy trying to rush to get here trying not to throw up in the car on the way to help but that apparently I wasn’t going to find any help here” and walked out, meeting my husband after just parking the truck and I told him to drive to the other hospital’s ER and that I would explain on the way.
On the way, we tried to page my endo again to let her know we were not at the first hospital, but that we were on the way to the other hospital and that we or they would be expecting a call from her for further instructions. We got to the other hospital and they took me right back. My bg was then too high for even their handheld meters and they ordered bloodwork. After the ER doc paged my endo, they waited an hour before administering insulin. I was already on fluids, but they were inexperienced with Apidra, so they wanted her direction as to what needed to be done. She didn’t call, so he gave 20u of Regular. 10 by sub-q and 10 by IV. 4 hours later, my glucose was down to 359 and the results from the labwork had come back – 740!. WHOA! No wonder I was so sick! He released me with strict orders to check every 2 hrs after that and to watch for hypoglycemia… which did eventually happen at 11am the next day. ( By the time we were released, it was 4am, so I was dead tired when we got home. I slept as much as I could the next day.) We asked the ER doc before we left if my endo had ever called. He looked at us and said “Never heard a word”. He then asked if I would like to be refered to another doctor, and of course, I took him up on his offer. Got an appoinment on the 15th.
Yes, I know eating what I did was a no-no and probably won’t eat that again. Yes, I know I should have checked my cannula as soon as I knew I was high. But to have never heard from my endo, not to even get a status update, to me, was very unprofessional. I know she has a life and family outside of her office, but I also know that she has a responsibility to her patients. She gets paid well enough (trust me, I see the EOBs go through) and in my opinion, there should be no excuse as to why she could not have handled this situation. Even if she was busy, she could have called another doctor in the practice that was on call if she wasn’t to handle the situation. Maybe I am just ranting, but there has been more that this doctor has done that has dissatisfied me and my husband and this was the final straw.