Our primary care doc told my hubby "OK, you have diabetes. You need to lose about a hundred pounds and start exercising." THAT'S IT!! And this doctor is retiring in a couple of months, so he won't be around for follow-up care.
I feel like somebody just told me, "Sorry to tell you this, but you are blind and you will be blind for the rest of your life. Have a nice day."
HELLO??? I need tools to deal with this! If you are blind, you need skills like mobility training and Braille and stuff like that.
I know that DH needs to be followed by an endocrinologist. Both of us need education in how to live with this disease. I need to learn more about meal planning and cooking (both of which I loathe; I'd love to move to Mexico and have a live-in cook. We both speak Spanish so this would not be too hard.) Nobody has said anything about getting a glucometer or whether we even need to worry about this yet. How will we know? DH had lab work done on his last doctor visit but we don't have the results back yet.
I'm the one who is going to have to get pushy with the medical system and find out about all this. DH is being very passive about it. (Maybe if we don't think about it, it will go away.) I had DH specifically question our doctor about this stuff and the doctor said, very sadly, "All of that is pro-active. The medical system is not geared that way. That's one of the reasons I'm retiring; I'm sick of bucking a system that wants to stall and wait until people become irreversibly ill before they do anything."
This makes me really angry. What about people who aren't educated enough to research things in the library or on the internet, and haven't any idea where to start or what to do? Or people who aren't assertive enough to speak up on their own behalf? I spent 30 years as a government beaurocrat so I can step up to the plate and really get in peoples' faces if I have to - and I will do it for people I love. But why should I have to? Why can't they say, "OK, you've been diagnosed with diabetes, here's what you need to do. . ."
its a good thing that doctor is retiring
ReplyDeleteyes you need to find a good endocrinologist
don't know where you live
but most major cities today have programs at the major teaching hospitals
Some of our other contributors are much better researchers and they will probably chime in with additional information
also in this case the american diabetic association and juvenile diabetes association probably have some basic on-line information to go for some initial information
finally, your husband needs to be the one to take control -- not you
it is not your disease
he is sick
its his disease
keep writing
good luck
It's more of a time thing. I'm retired and he isn't. I have more time to make phone calls and ask questions. And I can get pretty pushy when I need to.
ReplyDeleteI actually called the Endocrinology Dept today and discovered, as I had suspected, that there are a LOT of resources available for diabetics - classes on various aspects of living with it, one-on-one sessions with a nurse-practitioner, glucose monitors, etc. BUT YOU HAVE TO DISCOVER THESE ON YOUR OWN!!! They won't just tell you up-front as soon as you are diagnosed. This seems very small-minded to me.
It seems as if the doctor who told you those things was either burnt out, just being lazy, not caring enough to bother to help, or maybe all 3! There are lots of resources available, and shame on him that he did not point you in the right direction. GOOD FOR YOU that you did not take no for an answer.
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