If you expect to hear it, then should it really be that bad?

Yes and no. 

Today's endo appointment wasn't as bad as I thought it would be in terms of feeling like I was getting raked over the coals. First, the good news: the thyroid nodule hasn't grown and I don't need to follow up on it until March 2012. Like K said when they first discovered it, I've probably had it forever. And nodules are apparently pretty common.

So the bad news: cholesterol is up, thyroid out of whack for the first time in ages, A1C up. Everything is up except my mood.

I think I generally take this kind of news in stride during the appointment. It's typically hours later when I realize what I went through. And that's when I start kicking myself and hating diabetes and thinking about how nice it would be to not have to think about all this stuff all the time.

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There's nothing quite like getting raked over the coals at your endo's office first thing in the morning.

It's a necessary evil. It's actually good for everyone with diabetes to check in with their endo -- or whomever is their primary diabetes caregiver -- several times a year. So I'm not saying I don't want to go. All I'm saying is that it's no fun to hear about what a crappy job you're doing being the manager of your pancreas.

I think it's been about fourish months since I last saw K, the nurse practitioner at my endo's office. Last week I had an ultrasound on the thyroid nodule that was discovered last year. So tomorrow's appointment will be to go over the results of the ultrasound, to go over results from routine blood work I had several weeks ago, to get my A1C and to check over my general diabetes care.

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I know I'm not the only one to have gone through this.

I have an issue with my endo's office and renewing my prescriptions. I get my insulin and my thyroid medication through my endo's office. I see the nurse practitioner, K, as often as she asks me to. I get my routine blood work, I show up to my appointments on time.

I understand that the reason providers only give patients a certain number of refills is so that patients will check in with their providers to make sure the medication is working, is still the right one for them, that the dosage is the right one, blah, blah, blah. I GET THAT.

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I thought seriously about postponing my endo appointment scheduled for this morning. I hadn’t seen the doc since August, when my A1C was 7.6. I didn’t think I was doing any better than I had been doing in August. In fact, I was pretty sure I was doing worse.

Thanks to some pretty crappy eating habits, some stress and dealing with worn out pump sites, I suspected my A1C was going to be ridiculously high. I even imagined myself telling the nurse to not tell me the number, to just write it down and let me look at it when I was ready. And then I realized that was stupid because how is the doc going to help me if we don’t talk specifically about what my A1C is.

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In this post I will rant and rave in a way I don’t think I ever have about something that when I look back at this post in about 20 minutes may see incredibly trivial. Or not.
 

Seriously, what is the logic behind checking my blood sugar at the endocrinologists office? Not *me* checking my sugar, but the nurse checking it during the course of blood pressure, weight, pulse, etc.
 

I mean really, for them it’s a totally random time to check someone’s sugar. They never ask when I ate last or when I last bolused. What is the reason for this?
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When I look back at the first pediatrician we had for No. 1 there's really one thing that stands out: Had she been a parent when she was treating us I think the care would have been different. Not better, mind you, just different.

Of course, I didn't realize this until after we had more kids and moved and had to find another pediatrician. Someone who had her own kids. The connection between me and her was different, as was the one between the kids and her. Yes, in a way, that connection was better, not just different.

Now, don't get your panties in a bunch because I'm not saying being a parent is a prerequisite for being a good pediatrician. What I'm saying is that I'm wondering if having an endo who has diabetes -- particularly type 1 -- will make a difference for me or not. See where I went with that?

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