Endo Offices (The Devil You Know Is Not A Reason To Stay)

 My first endo doctor told me I could never eat pizza again.

My second endo doctor kept me on a blood pressure medication that made my already low blood pressure even lower and gave me horrible dizzy spells. He said he "didn't want to step on his colleague's toes". 

My third endo doctor, my first time meeting her, was when I got pregnant for the first time and I overheard her talk to the nurse about how I had made a mistake. That I shouldn't have gotten pregnant.

Being T1D does not mean you cannot do normal life things. It means those normal life events have an added layer of complexity. But when I heard that doctor imply that my child was a mistake, I knew that I couldn't keep playing this horrible game with this endo office and I left. Of course, with many diabetes fixes, when one problem is solved, new problems arise. 

I was now pregnant and going to a new endo office which was a part of a diabetes and pregnancy program at a big name hospital. They at least knew I could have a healthy pregnancy, but they sure didn't trust me to be able to do it. My endo wanted me on low carb diets. Along with all the food you can't eat during pregnancy already came a much longer list of foods that were suddenly off limits. And when you're pregnant with hormones and pregnancy cravings, that made me mad. But I was also scared for my unborn baby. I would do anything to keep her safe. So I survived on eggs, cheese, pickles, and what I called "magic soup". (The soup was a Chinese pork and cabbage soup. I can get you the recipe.) 

My baby was born small, but healthy. I had been miserable, but nothing terrible had happened. I felt like I had been failing the whole pregnancy, but there was my beautiful and healthy baby. 

When I got pregnant with my second, I went to the same endo and same hospital. I was treated the same way, as if I knew nothing. I had done this once and yet I felt like I was doing even worse the second time! And then I realized that on my chart, during my second pregnancy at the same hospital, they had put down that I had gestational diabetes. How long had that been there? Is that why I was being treated like I was stupid? How could this have happened? I had fallen for "The Devil You Know" fallacy all over again, but this devil did not know me.

I switched endos afterwards. I was mad and determined to find someone who would listen to me. I'm glad I did. 

I'm now pregnant with my third child. My current endo knows and trusts me. The hospital I'm going to for prenatal care knows me and trusts me too. 

To all T1Ders out there, you deserve to be heard and seen and listened to. You did nothing to deserve this disease and you don't deserve to keep getting punished because of another doctor's fears. If an endo office is hurting you, leave. You deserve better. 

Endo Office Frustration

I've been going in for a lot of tests this week.
LOTS of tests.
My boyfriend even took me to the lab to do a urine test. (He's such a good sport.)

And then I got the results.
They called me and said "Your numbers for your microalbumin are high but they're not as high as they once were. We want you to do a 24-hour urine test. We're going to mail the lab slip."
I'm going back to college in a few days so I don't have much time for peeing in buckets.
And how high is high?

The range my microalbumin should be is 5 to 100. When I was diagnosed, it was 2000. It's currently at 973. That high of a number could mean that I could get kidney disease.

So I call them and say, "Can I just come in and pick up the bucket?" "Oh, yeah! Sure."

We get there and I just want to go in, pick up the pee bucket, and get out. I sign the forms, get approved, and go into the lab. The nurse ushers me into a seat and brings out one of those tiny urine cups. "Oh no, I need the bucket. I just did the random urine test yesterday," I tell her. "The form says a urine sample. You'll probably need to go up to the endo office and get that fixed," she responds. How frustrating! And then the nurse says, "Do you want to do the blood sample before you go up?" BLOOD SAMPLE? I already did my blood sample!!! No no no no! The whole form is wrong. Thankfully my mother was there to calm me down and explain things to the nurse.

So we go up to the endo office. "The lab got it wrong. That form is right," the endo secretary tries to insist. Thankfully one of the nurses was around. She takes the form back and gets it fixed.
All I needed was a stupid pee bucket that I don't even want. I don't even want to do this.
The nurse comes back with a new form. "There are some new nurses here that must have messed it up." Sure. Cover your own butt.
The blood sample was still on the form. "No no, I don't need this." The nurse crosses it off.
I take the form back down to the front office.

Now, you'd expect the story to end here but it doesn't!!
I ask the front office, "Do I need to go through registration again or can I go right into the lab?"
One lady looks at the paper and says that the nurse didn't initial where she crossed off the blood sample and that I was going to have to bring it back up FOUR STORIES to get this NURSE TO INITIAL WHERE SHE CROSSED OFF!!! TO GET A BUCKET! FOR PEE! I could get my own bucket to fill with pee and it would be FASTER THAN THIS!
Then the woman I usually see at the front office comes over and says that the paperwork is fine. Just go into the lab.
And the nurse at the lab tells me, "I'll take care of the labs that you didn't do. I'll take it off of the insurance." And they give me my pee bucket.

I don't know what I hate more, the diabetes or the endo office.