Diary of An Irish Woman

musings of an irish lady now living in America.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Follow up soapbox rant

So went to Diabetes program folks yesterday for followup. Surprise surprise all is normal. They marked my following of program as acceptable. (seems that's the best you can do, I did miss taking blood twice in mornings as forgot before I had a nice veggie burger in my mouth with a waffle... Note that they didn't put down all blood sugar tests normal - does she even need this... Only thing I changed was stopped orange juice in morning. Rest of diet is same :-) and my thumb is battered from stabbing it..
So I told nice nurse that I didn't want to come weekly as major pain in the arse getting there with walker and I have enough doc appts already with Ob-Gynie, Physio, Chiro going on. She said that I could come back in two weeks and graduate all going well. So yipee and get the flags out.
She said she wanted me to also see the Dietitian. I asked if she would tell me anything different then they had. Nope. So why see her and my insurance pay for that and I pay for that? Agreed to in end as probably doesn't hurt get more tips but said I'm not seeing the social worker they wanted me to see. (To what - discuss how much it saddens me to see Orange Juice leave my life...) . She said well you're under so much stress with the walker and now this with the diabetes would be good to talk to Social Worker about it. I told her the truth, I don't feel stressed. Yes my pelvis hurts but rest is me is grand and enjoying the pregnancy. I have little or nothing to complain about. Most SPD folks clear up much better post pregnancy so hopefully mine will be same and plan to do Pilate's afterwards to get back my pelvic strength as quickly as possible. There could be a lot worse and moaning about it helps in no way. Also my hair looks fabulous...
They also seem to be obsessing re my drinking a glass of milk every 3 days. I don't even really like milk but started craving it last month so have a glass every 3 maybe even 4 days. I add a sugar free syrup so I can pretend its something else (I have a collection of them from carb free diets). Some are very yummy amaretto, Kahlua, strawberry ;-) So I can pretend having that glass of Baileys...
Then nurse said when I graduate I get lab slips for testing post pregnancy. She said and we'll have you do the glucose sugar test again.
No I said.
What she flustered. No I said. I am not doing that drinking pure glucose test again and especially post pregnancy. Its not a valid test recognized by American Diabetes Association as confirming or denying Diabetes and only thing seems to show is are you intolerant to 100g of pure sugar in one go - so nope not taking it I said nicely with a smile.
You could have caught flies in her mouth.
I told her happy to do blood test for fasting as that's valid but otherwise that's it. Practically no other countries do the glucose test as a valid GD testing. And certainly not post pregnancy.
Don't get me wrong - do I think I am at risk with being overweight and AMA - certainly I do(Advanced maternal age with GD their benchmark is being over 25 yrs old by the way so nearly EVERYONE is then at risk with that age limit !). Do I think eating healthy is better for me and Hobbit - yep and I really did change my eating habits being preggers. I now eat for one thing and snack about 6 times a day instead of that oops forgot to eat and let me eat 6 hrs later and have carbs with my double side of carbs. (example I would think nothing of a ramen noddles in bread, in fact only thing I haven't made into a sandwich pre-preggers is jello...) I want to eat better and so all for that. I now go swimming/walking in pool 4-5 days a week and feel better for it. I'll be keeping that up as well. (especially since nice Y folks will babysit free from Hobbit being 6 weeks old while you swim or exercise for two hours). But I think that unnecessary tests are just that unnecessary and I for one am getting off the bandwagon..
Said bye to the nice nurse who I told very nicely that I understand that's their protocol and she certainly didn't invent it but thanks a million and no thanks. She made some comment about me having strong opinions so maybe social worker visit wasn't a good idea. I laughed and said well since you want me to be responsible for my diet and exercise and well being - I should be responsible for all that but not have an opinion on my own health care? She didn't have an answer and I was done, I picked up my soapbox, loaded it on my walker and rolled off into the afternoon...

1 Comments:

At 1:11 PM, Blogger Angoraknitter said...

BRAVO! Very well done. You're an informed health care consumer, and your own best advocate...I can't figure out why a social worker would be suggested.

 

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