Anxiety Squared
Yes, I'm still on reduced blog privileges. Yes, part of the anxiety is from the deadline breathing hot stinky air down my neck
But mostly my anxiety level has shot up to new heights because I came home today to a message reminding me that I have an appointment tomorrow with a new endocrinologist. An appointment I had conveniently managed to forget about. You may recall that I dumped McClinic . And that I got the name of a new doctor from a cool CDE with a potty mouth.
My blood sugars have sucked lately. Or rather, to be honest, I should say that, my blood sugars have sucked, when I have bothered to test them more than two or three times a day. The scale is sliding upwards, fueled by some holiday and stress-induced eating. I'm slacking on the gym. And this is not where I want to be at when I meet a new doctor.
I'm really tempted to call and cancel the appointment. I've done this plenty of times before, thinking, I'll put it off for a month or two and get my act together in the meantime. If I wait a month I can come in to the appointment with a perfect log book and perfect blood sugars and... And of course two months roll around, and the little blue blinking message light on the answering machine reminds me, in a crude computerized voice, that Artie or Tartie or some other mangled version of my name, has an appointment tomorrow at 1 pm with Dr. X Y or Z. And I curse myself, because of course, I have done none of the things I promised myself. I have changed nothing.
This is where I hate the doctors of my childhood. I hate them for leaving me with this pervasive sense of shame. For leaving me with the impression that every doctor is going to judge me by the numbersin my log that they download from my meter because I hate logging even more than I hate tuna fish salad. That they'll look at those numbers and see someone stupid who doesn't know that this disease will kill her if she's not careful. They won't see someone who wants to control this but who doesn't want to let it control her. Someone who is so much more than the numbers on that awful sheet of paper. They look at that sheet of paper and they see the person who boluses without testing. They don't see the the person who at least is bolusing when she eats, not two hours later - even if she hasn't tested first.
I want them to see me, not just the could be better diabetic.
I am so dreading this appointment.
This is the only reason I haven't canceled it. (Click through, it's worth it!)
But mostly my anxiety level has shot up to new heights because I came home today to a message reminding me that I have an appointment tomorrow with a new endocrinologist. An appointment I had conveniently managed to forget about. You may recall that I dumped McClinic . And that I got the name of a new doctor from a cool CDE with a potty mouth.
Did I ever mention the phone call I got from the McClinic doctor? I don't think I did. The I understand you're not happy with us and your complaints make perfect sense but nothing is going to change, and oh by the way, it's not like we don't have enough patients anyway, phone call? The I'll take fifteen minutes to call you about this, but can't be bothered to call you back about your blood sugars phone call? Yeah. Bizarre. It was doubly odd because Pili had neglected to mention to me that she had run into the doctor at the supermarket and told her that I was unhappy there and looking to switch docs. So I was all... um, where did you hear that? Oh, my partner? Really? PIIIIILI!
My blood sugars have sucked lately. Or rather, to be honest, I should say that, my blood sugars have sucked, when I have bothered to test them more than two or three times a day. The scale is sliding upwards, fueled by some holiday and stress-induced eating. I'm slacking on the gym. And this is not where I want to be at when I meet a new doctor.
I'm really tempted to call and cancel the appointment. I've done this plenty of times before, thinking, I'll put it off for a month or two and get my act together in the meantime. If I wait a month I can come in to the appointment with a perfect log book and perfect blood sugars and... And of course two months roll around, and the little blue blinking message light on the answering machine reminds me, in a crude computerized voice, that Artie or Tartie or some other mangled version of my name, has an appointment tomorrow at 1 pm with Dr. X Y or Z. And I curse myself, because of course, I have done none of the things I promised myself. I have changed nothing.
This is where I hate the doctors of my childhood. I hate them for leaving me with this pervasive sense of shame. For leaving me with the impression that every doctor is going to judge me by the numbers
I want them to see me, not just the could be better diabetic.
I am so dreading this appointment.
This is the only reason I haven't canceled it. (Click through, it's worth it!)
posted by art-sweet at 10:58 PM
15 Comments:
That is a good reason not to cancel! What a beautiful baby!
Oh, don't cancel the appointment. This is your chance to MAYBE find a better doc. The statement "It is not like we don't have enough patients" clearly shows the motivation of your previous doc. Happy you could temper your irritation with the cute baby pic! Don't your shoulders and body sort of melt so you can hug the cutie?
Go for the Yawning Cutie, but keep going for yourself.
Maybe this doc/CDE won't suck. Maybe they'll actually hear you out and listen to you like a person with diabetes, not a diabetic.
And if they're anywhere close to better than average, won't you be glad you found them?
I once declared that I could no longer exist in the world of infertility because of hugely similar feelings about doctors and wanting to feel like an individual again rather than a list of notes. Reading your thoughts made me wonder yet again at your strength in dealing with a chronic illness-- I wonder if it would literally drive me insane. That said, I hope that you make (made?) the appointment-- maybe this will be an improvement over your last doctor.
Okay, okay, I'm writing all of that as though it's really what your entry left me thinking about (it seemed the polite thing to do). But, in truth, I'm really sitting hear and cooing over the adorable baby pictures! He's just so cute!
What an adorable picture.
Why don't you try saying some variation of this post to your new doctor? That you want to be seen as a person, not a log book. That you want to work WITH him/her, rather than have an antagonistic relationship.
Art-sweet
You probably have two types of friends. The first type are the ones where you work hard to clean your place up before they visit. And the second type are the ones who visit to see you and don't really care if your place looks like hundreds of people have just tramped through it.
I think endos are CDEs are the same. You want one who's like the second type of friend and who says 'how can I help you fix this?' without judging you.
Go to the appointment, you'll learn more about them based on how they deal with you during the hard times.
Great comments here! (And yes, the click was worth it!)
After all these years, I'm still trying to figure out just what the cr's role is, because we have to do soooooo much of the dcision making ourselves. I have a nasty habit of moving my appointments further out if my numbers have not been on target, and am already plotting this with my January appt.
Yes, it would be nice to initially present yourself as the perfect patient to this new doc, but you don't need to impress anybody - you're going because you want a new health care provider who can give you what you need.
Good luck, Art. Hope its a good fit this time.
definitely worth it! so cute!
I wish I could thank you enough for making me understand some of what my husband goes through. He hates that his dr. sees his numbers and not him.
Good luck at the new appointment.
Heya Art,
Go ahead and go to the appointment.
Don't fret about it, and rather use it as an opportunity. I like what Julia, Bernard and MN said about it, but I'm also struck by Johnboy's latest post (go check it out). About feeling the need to prove to them that you can do it all yourself, rather than seeing it as an opportunity to be helped.
Go, and be helped. You deserve it.
I sort of feel the same about my weight when I see a new doctor, like I want to put it off until I weigh less. Becaues I know they are going to have the same talk, the "hey guess what you are fat" talk.
In my head I'm all "thanks for the news flash, Dr. Brilliant" but I usually just mumble about how I'm working on it.
Wow, isn't he precious! Thank you for sharing.
Totally worth the click through. What an adorable little guy.
Good luck at the endo. I echo the well-stated sentiments of the others.
I heard about some therapy form anxiety.
You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog.
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