Dear Endo...

Dear Endo,
Yet again, I walk through your double doors, expecting to hear angels singing, while feeling the white, warm light, shining down on my face. It is fitting after all, since I have place you on this pedestal, that sits high enough to be in the heavens. No other doctor, compares to you. You are the only one who can see the true me, the sick me, even though that is not how I feel or look.

I approach, awaiting my judgment day. I get ready to stand before your nurses, with high blood pressure and nerves, hoping you will, sometime soon, grace me with your presence.

I prepare, plan and wait for this moment, each time that I come. Sometimes, just thinking about this moment scares me into submission, and other times, it leads me to rebel.

I am anxious, and eager to hear what you have to say. Each time, I hope that your answers will dramatically change my life in a profound way. Secretly, I know you have the cure to that sick side, that I hide. With each question I ask, I am chipping away slowly to the perfect treatment, or permanent solution that you hold somewhere in that room, that has the damn scale.

Instead, I am brought back down to reality. There is no singing. The only white light is coming from obscenely fluorescent lights. The nurses are dripping in hospital blue and sporting crocs instead of halos. My blood pressure and BG are the only thing rising to the heavens at this moment.

My judgment comes with a new, in house, A1c machine that immediately sucked, after it delivered a number of 11.4 (note to self.. in heaven, it wouldn't have moved from 5.8)

And then you enter my room, slightly shorter than I remember, with a speed and demeanor that said you weren't taking questions. You balk at me, offer no answers, and then request to babysit me and my basals by having me fax my logs daily. You finally entertain my question about the problem behind me, and can tell me little. When I press you about the lipoatrophy, you get annoyed, leave the room and do a consult next door. Your loud voices, carry to my room, and I now know, none of you have actually seen it in practice. After a little referencing, you return with a anecdote of, "It's just a random side effect of the insulin. Let me know if it happens again and we'll change your insulin again"

I leave now realizing (once again) that you are not a god. I care, and know more about MY health than anyone - even you. This disease is mine, and I am responsible for it completely.

I leave today feeling so grateful for all the info and support from my DOC community, that far surpass your "team" that treat my disease. I wonder why I need to see you so often, but I've decided, that you can write my scripts and order my tests. period.

Someone needs to call an ambulance!

OK, so lately things have been better. No new dents or craters, and I've found the adjustment to Apidra pretty seamless. And then came today, where the world started turning in the opposite direction, and everything became somewhat surreal.

A little back story about work. We have been changing a lot in reference to a new and poorly defined work flow. My boss is pretty incompetent (and I'm being extremely nice).

Lately my usually cheery demeanor has been, well less cheery out of sheer frustration. On top of this, our workplace is making us jump through all kinds of medical wellness hoops to get the full insurance subsidy from the company (a whole other future post.)We are having to get mandatory blood drawn (AT WORK) for tests, along with BMI and blood pressure tests. The goal is to find health problems early.

Today, was my day to be singled out.

I started with the usual routine, with the exception of having to fast for my blood tests in the afternoon. I'm not sure if my tolerance was low because I was food deprived or I was actually low, but I lost my buffer. You know, the one that keeps you from saying what you are REALLY thinking. One of my close friends, had repeatedly said I was in "rare form". So of course, this would be the day my boss would pull me into a conference room to "talk". He said he was concerned, not about my work, but he thought he was seeing that I had reservations about our new system. He asked me to share my concerns, because he genuinely wanted feedback.

I kept thinking, TODAY?!? Your asking me today?. I quietly attempted to pull myself back, and I said, "What I think really isn't important." Please let this go!! Please! Of course he didn't and so it came out. everything. Every grievance, every assault on his management skills, everything thing he was doing wrong and how it affected the group as a whole. I couldn't believe I was speaking unbuffered. Who was I? I didn't even recognize myself.

Now USUALLY, my boss gets quiet and ends the conversation as soon as he doesn't approve of the direction. Instead, he listened and talked it out AND APOLOGIZED A LOT!!!! For over an hour, he listened to my plight and conceded. Who was he? He certainly did not resemble my boss of over 10 years. We worked a lot of things out and walked out actually laughing. I still have trouble believing it, and I am surprised at how much better I feel to have voiced all that resentment (although I still feel like HR might call me).

So, about 30 minutes later, I was off for my tests. I filled out my form (which doesn't have a place to put diabetic), and got my blood work, via finger stick, done. It was officially completed with a large bandaid I have to laugh at. I mean, if I did that after every pin prick, I would look pretty silly.

I waited for my name to be called, and when I approached, she was praising my cholesterol, BP and BMI. And then I heard it. "this can't be right. let me check that...you said your fasting?" "Yes" I replied. Pacing back and forth from the machines, I hear her say, " this can't be right. Someone look at this...Is the machine working? It is? Someone needs to call an ambulance. QUICKLY!!! Her blood sugar is 410!"

After being waived off several times, she finally heard me AFTER she announce to THE ENTIRE ROOM my blood sugar. "I have diabetes!" I was trying not to alert everyone of my health condition, but I had to practically yell to get her attention.

Her reaction was so anticlimactic. "Oh, well nevermind. So, here are your results, do you have any questions?" Yeah, what happened to the privacy act... So I ducked my head, and retrieved my bags and went home (it was now after quitting time).I was still in shock on my drive home. I know stress can raise BG numbers, but 410? I rage bolused and drove home, and I am now around 240 and tired. I plan on taking a hot bath, and going to bed early tonight. Maybe tomorrow, the world will return to normal, or I will wake up finding out it was just a dream

Butt...I don't understand!

I've often thought that I had gremlins hiding away in my house. Lurking near my dryer, waiting for that one sock they can hijack out of a clean load of laundry. Or they are sneaking in my purse to steal my keys, and place them in the oddest of locations.

This is how I like to explain things to myself, when things are missing or lost. It is certainly not the forgetful nature of my now 30 year old self. Most of the time, things show back up before a true crisis can't commence.

Butt...
I'm missing something I'm VERY attached to. I noticed it, night before last while attempting to do a set change, and I am completely horrified over it.

I've only been on a pump since November, and I've only been using insulin for less than 2 years. In that time, I have been warned about only one side effect to the insulin. Hypoglycemia. It seemed a small price to pay for my life, therefore I accepted it. So, I was really surprised to see that when I went to take out my old site, sitting at the top of my butt/hip was a HUGE DENT, where I used to have muscle and fat. It's like the insulin just dissolved everything within a half dollar size around the cannula. Literally skin over bone, and quite disturbing.

I was clearly to upset to attempt to put in a new site, and with no current script for long acting insulin, I spent the entire night, rotating shots of Novolog in any place, not visible to the average person, for fear of having another crater appear. I called my Dr. who switched me to Apidra, and gave me a Levemir script, just in case. He did not want to see me, and said since I'm coming in, in about a week or 2, to just wait. But I have to admit, I am really disturbed. No one said this could happen, and the Dr. didn't give me any explanation either. Like most any woman, losing a little fat isn't a bad thing, but this is downright disfiguring. I'm just lucky that it is in a more hidden place.

So far, the Apidra hasn't caused another problem, but I find myself constantly feeling my butt, to see if anything is different. Not the best way to impress co-workers by the way. I look up every now and again to see someone staring in disbelief at me. Oops.

I am still very afraid of the insulin at this time. While there has not been a reaction since, I've gone almost 2 years on insulin, and months with the pump with no problem until WHAM (not the group). HUGE DENT.

Anyone have any experience with this, or have at least heard of this happening? I've read many posts about getting fatty lumps from overuse, but not this.