Bedside Manner -- Not!

So this is what our healthcare system has come to.

I go to a medical group that calls itself a "family medicine practitioner," which, frankly, is crap. They don't take Medicare so that means the family ends at 65. If you're 65 or over, you're out of the family! But I digress.

There are a couple of doctors but, needless to say, they're always booked. So I go to a female PA. Now if we were in Great Britain, I guess that would be Personal Assistant. But we're not, so it's a Physician's Assistant. A glorified nurse if it matters.

She takes herself Very Seriously. There's no joking about your health, that's for sure. And she's probably as knowledgeable as the doctor, which isn't saying much. The only time I saw the doctor, he checked out my swollen hands and diagnosed contact dermatitis. Turned out to be caused by a degenerative disk problem in my neck. So, anyway, no loss if I don't see him.

But the PA is also very busy. Time is money and all that. So, having taken me through why I needed to take a two-hour glucose tolerance test, and stressing the importance of the whole thing, she can't be bothered to call with the results. She has her assistant call me.

This woman, let's call her the APA, has the bedside manner of a box of rocks. She starts by leaving a message on my voicemail at 11:15 am saying "call right away." I call right away, at 11:20, and get a message saying the whole practice is out of the office for lunch from 11:30 to 1 pm. Wow! I don't get 90 minutes for lunch--maybe I'm working for the wrong company!

I call back at 1:15 and leave a message. Then again at 4 pm. Wow! Must be really important news she has to impart.

The following day, having received no callback from APA, I call again. Oh, yes, she says, with all the animation of an eggplant, your blood glucose levels are too high and you need to start on medication. She's called in a prescription for Metformin and a glucose meter. Start taking a reading each morning before breakfast and come back in a month. Thanks and have a nice day.

Now, first off, they're charging my insurance company for a test that apparently could been handled by three readings in the office by a nursing assistant, or maybe even by the custodian, and a glucose meter. Maybe they learned something more complex from all that blood they took THREE TIMES but if so, no one imparted it to me. Again, I digress.

Anyway, I stop off at my local Rite-Aid where the pharmacist pushes a brown paper bag the size of a small travel suitcase through the drive-through window along with my credit card receipt. Any instructions? I ask. No, it's pretty self-explanatory, says the pharmacist. More personality, more bedside manner.

I take the bag home and spread the contents on the table. Glucose meter, lancets, test strips, pills. The meter comes with a carrying case, a plastic cylinder that looks like a pen, and four separate instruction brochures. Four! I quickly peruse the "quick start" chart which is a wall-size series of diagrams printed on both sides. This means that if you wanted to put it on your wall, it would be useless because half the information is on the other side.

I bunch it all back up, stuff it back into the bag, and walk away from it. Let's face it, if it was that important, someone would be showing you what to do with it, wouldn't they?

Fuhgeddaboudit!

Denial No More

Apparently, I've been living in denial for quite awhile. Not that that's always a bad thing. There are some things that are really helped by denial ... like that fantasy, way back in the prehistoric part of your brain, that you still look as good as you did in high school. Or the nagging sense that maybe, just maybe, your husband is cheating on you.

Okay, okay. Maybe that last example wasn't a good one but it really helped me when I was living it.

Anyway, my denial about the Type 2 diabetes that runs through my family is over. My mother had it. Her grandfather had it. My older daughter has it (although hers morphed from gestational diabetes).

So now I've been diagnosed. And now I have to figure out what to do about it.

Because I've always been that type of person. I don't just allow things to happen to me ... I plan, I plot, I take action.

Who am I kidding? Not me, anymore.