Lilly wrote to describe one of her experiences:
...When my husband was going through frequent hospitalizations because of kidney stones (brought about in part by kidney failure: he has had a transplanted kidney now for the last 8 and a half years), it was as if no one in either of the hospitals he went to knew how to handle diabetes. His sugars would be in the 400 to 500s, and instead of giving him insulin immediately, the nurses would respond with: "We have to call the doctor first." They couldn't always immediately get ahold of the doctor, and in the meantime his sugar would get higher. And yes, they often blamed him, saying he was eating candy. In actuality, he was sucking on carb-free hard candies, because of the dry mouth he was experiencing! And also ranting, because the sugar was so high, and he felt he could do nothing about it. The one time he took matters into his own hands and self-injected insulin, his doctor threatened to drop him as his patient. (Maybe that wouldn't have been a bad thing?) At this point, we try to avoid hospitals at all costs
Isn't that sad? that we have to avoid doctors and hospitals completely? She goes on to say that the hospitals have policies that the patient is forbidden to self-administer their insulin. I didn't know this. Its been a long time since Tom has been in the hospital long enough to need that (thank goodness!) and I don't remember if he tried to self-administer when he was in -- hmm. And now Tom has been on a pump for so long, that I don't know what they would do in the hospital. I can't imagine that any of the "medical staff" would know how to operate it. they don't seem to pay people enough money or train them enough to handle people with real illnesses today.
I read something recently that, as a nation, we spend more on caring for people with diabetes even though we spend more on trying to cure cancer. something is wrong with this picture.
by the way, I don't have diabetes, but I don't trust much of my own health care to doctors either. Unless what you have fits exactly with what they have seen before, forget it -- they can't deal. But they will test, and test, and test. Waste of time, energy, fear, and everything else. Personally, I'm done with that. Of course, I'm lucky that I'm pretty healthy.
OK, that's it for me tonight.
hope everyone gets some sleep tonight
Happy New Year
may 2011 be a good year for all of us.....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I am so grateful for my own good health, but I would have to agree. While I really like my personal physician and have been with her for 12 years, I think she is really good and annual physicals and colds, flu, sprained muscles....but not at anything beyond that. She would simply refer me to a specialist...someone who hasn't seen me before and knows absolutely nothing about me. Not what I would feel confident with. So I use holistic methods for most of my problems. And go get that physical every couple of years!
ReplyDeleteOr is it that we go to so many medical appointments with our spouses that we are determined not to go for ourselves?
Sometimes I wonder!
DW
I am also very lucky that I'm healthy, and after what I've witnessed, I do my best to stay that way! I think being preventive and proactive with your health is so much easier than trying to fix something after it goes wrong . . . not that my husband could do anything about becoming diabetic, as the cause of Type 1 is so poorly understood.
ReplyDeleteI think the only advice I could give anyone who is diabetic is to find out what the policy on insulin dosing is before they are admitted to a hospital, and then do their best to negotiate with their doctor. For one hospitalization, my husband was actually allowed to administer his own insulin, and things went much better for him . . . so "the rules" may not be written in stone, but you really need to push hard for what you want to happen. Unfortunately for hubby, most of his hospital time has been emergency admissions, so there is not a lot of negotiation at that point.