Someone Cares

Someone cares

Thursday 26th January 2012

The day it all began to go right again!

First though, remember my GP telling me that they had arranged an appointment with a specialist? So here I am, checked in at reception at the community hospital, sitting waiting my turn and soon enough I'm led though and introduced to?  A consultant endocrinologist? No.  A bloody nurse!

Fair enough, very nice lady, introduces herself as a Nurse Consultant (?), all I hear is 'nurse'.

Soddit.  Deep breath, calm, hold back the black thoughts of "just wait 'til I see the sodding GP".  Here we go again I thought, having to explain it all to someone who won't be able to do a damn thing about it, don't they get just how shitty I'm feeling?

As it turns out I was meeting with an angel.

Not only did she "get it", she asked incredibly good questions, dug into every aspect of the symptoms, checked and rechecked details, and with hindsight, I'm pretty sure she could have wrapped the consult up in about 30 min, but she let me talk and allayed my concerns for about two hours.

I finally felt as if someone was not only listening, but actually knew what my symptoms meant.  Knew what to do about it.  Could offer a solution!!

"Great" said I, "so do you now have to make an appointment for me with a consultant?" - thinking that, nice as this has been, I really need treatment of some sort and that means a consultant, right?

So she repeated, "I'n a Nurse Consultant specialising in Diabetes, I can write out the prescriptions for you right now"

Two hours later and I had all the supplies I needed to get started on injecting insulin!!

Next episode:  Graphs, Charts, Data - Why?

NHS Direct - bless !!

NHS Direct - bless!

Right then, cut our sugar eh?  

Easy peasy.  Delicious supper of vegetable chillie and rice. Loads of lentils, five different kinds of beans, basmati rice - delicious!!

I love to cook, and as we grow most of our own veg we tend to eat relatively healthily (hides the crisps & chocolate behind the fresh fruit!).

It must be noted at this point that at no time did the GP show any interest in my description of the "loose stools" that I had been suffering from for the last four weeks.  No questioning about the debilitating and constant headache, no perked interest in my description of blurry vision coming on over the last six weeks or so, and no surprise at the sudden loss of weight. They must be all meaningless then, eh?

Dinner was delicious.  I forgot to test before dinner, but did take a metformin tablet as the GP had told me I would need to take them twice a day for the rest of my life.  Settled back on the sofa, watching telly, feeling really crap.  Mrs B says, why don't you do one of those tests?  Great - why didn't I think of that?

Test kit out, check strips, stab self with lancet (ouch!), too bloody right I don't want to do that often, it hurts! Drop of blood on strip, *BEEP* - "HI".

Wow, thats nice, it's saying Hi....very cool and a good sense of humour these meter companies.

Wait, wait, wait....hang on....must have done something wrong.  New strip, another stab (dammit!), another drop of blood and.....

"HI"

???

Where's the sodding manual, did I chuck it with the box?

Ooops, manual says that HI means over 33.3 mmol/l - crap!!

What to do - is it serious?  What does Professor Google say?  Holy Candy Floss Batman, this isn't looking good!  Now the GP had said to call them if it went above 20, its 10:30 at night, should I call?  Yes!

Ring, ring, - out of office hours message tells me to ring NHS Direct, so I guess I'll do that then.

Ring, ring, NHS Direct, how can I help you?

Utterly charming, very calming.  No explanation of what a BG of over 33.3 was, no advice on what to do, no idea other than "speak to you GP in the morning"

Back to trusty old #doc & Professor Google

Some of the best advice and most reassuring help I have ever had.  The #doc helped a very scared, worried and frightened person cope with a 10 hour wait for the GPs office to open.

Before bed test was still HI.

Next morning it was 19.6

Ring, ring...ring, ring,  "Hello, can I speak to the doctor please"

I described the test results, said I was very worried, was told that they now thought they could get me an appointment with a specialist within a week!  Why I asked, what's changed?  Why the sudden rush?  No real answer to that other than that it was me, the patient, who wanted to see a specialist and they were only trying to facilitate that.

What about the bg test results?  "Well they are coming down, so just keep an eye on them."

That afternoon I had my second call from the GP.  They had managed to get me an cancellation appointment with a specialist for the following day. Could I come into the surgery and pick up the referral letter to take with me to the specialist?

Have I mentioned the darkness of my mood and my mega sense of humour failure?  Imagine a very grouchy, very tetchy, very moody, irascible and above all tired, physically and mentally knackered, man.  Got it?  

Well that doesn't even begin to describe how bad I felt.

Tomorrow's appointment with the specialist couldn't come quickly enough.

Next instalment: Someone cares!

One Week In.....

I week in....

"But Paul" I hear you ask, "What happened in the 10 days between the General Practitioner (GP) telling you your fasting blood glucose (BG) was 17.6mmol/l and you being put on insulin?"

A very good question, and here's the tale:

I generally liked to think of myself as pretty fit.  Lots of walking with three dogs twice a day, running, cycling and the ever needy garden to tend to.

Sure I love my food and was perhaps a bit overweight, perhaps I drank a bit too much now and then, but I could also run an 8:30 mile, do hiking all day and cycle for hours without being knackered at the end of it.

In the twelve years or so that we have lived here I think I have been to the GP's maybe three or four times, usual stuff, man-flu (!), stomach bug, you know the sort of thing.  On each visit I have met a different GP, some I think were full-timers, others just passing through, suffice to say I had never met the same person twice.

So on Monday the 16th January when  I went into the surgery it was no surprise to me that I was seen by a temp GP.  She was lovely. I was asked for a urine sample and as soon as it showed positive for glucose I was asked to book in for a fasting blood test.  Fasting?  What's that I asked, and so the use of the word "diabetes" was introduced to my lexicon for the first time.

Having made a booking for the first slot available that Friday I was sent on my way.

Friday the 20th 09:30.  Fasting Blood Test, and cholesterol, liver function, kidney function oooh intriguing!

A Pint of Blood! That's nearly an armful!

Friday the 20th 16:30 - call at home from the GP's!  Some doctor I've never heard of, who apparently is the head of the practise. "Hello" he says, "it's the doctor here".

Now I've never been called by a doctor in my life, never mind at home and I don't know about you, but having his first word be "Don't worry" immediately scared the living hell out of me!

"Hello" says I, "What can I do for you?"

"Now I don't want you to worry, its nothing to worry about.  We have your BG results and they are a bit high so I thought I should call and tell you."

"Oh, how high?"

"Well, a bit higher than we would like really," pause, "so is your cholesterol and liver function and we'd like to check you kidneys"

SHIT!

"OooooKaaay - so exactly what are the results?"

"Well, your fasting BG is 17.6...."

I kind of stopped listening at that point, having been on Google for the last few days looking into what might be causing my symptoms and having a check list of a few really nasty options, a really high BG was not what I wanted to hear!

I was then asked to make an appointment for the next Monday to see someone at the surgery to go through the results, told to "stop eating anything with sugar in it" and "not to worry".

Monday 23rd January.  Another trip to the GP.  Another new face, and before I had even sat down, before even we had made eye contact, I was told I was overweight and needed to exercise, that I was a type 2 diabetic and needed metformin! Now, agreed, I could do with losing a few pounds, but overweight enough to become a T2?  My Body Mass Index was 26, I was 83.5kg, stocky sure, but WHAT!  I needed to "lose weight & exercise"!!

I was incredulous.  Here was someone who wouldn't be able to run down-hill for a bus telling me to lose weight.  Me!  Up until the last few months I had been training for a half marathon, running an 8 minute 30 second mile over 6 miles - bloody cheek!

Suffice to say I had a few questions, having spent the entire weekend researching diabetes - thank you the Diabetic Online Community (#doc)!

I asked for the basis of the diagnosis and the evidence to support it.  I asked for the tests and the data that discounted any other possibilities.  I asked for a copy of all the tests done to date and a full explanation of all of the results.  I wrote everything down in a notepad I had taken with me.  I asked for another opinion as I fundamentally disagreed with the diagnosis and treatment being offered me.  

I asked to see a specialist.

I was told that I could see a specialist in "a few weeks time" as the earliest slot on the system was well into March.  So I asked "does this practise have sufficient insurance to cover the unlikely event of me waking up in ER having been rushed in with Diabetic Ketoacidosis?" That got a response!

I was then give a blood glucose meter, told "not to go mad with it - there's no need to test all the time, a couple of times a day, and if the reading goes above 20, call us"

OK then - thanks!

So, home, open the meter, discover that there are only 10 test strips in the sample bottle and by the time you've figured out how to use the bloody thing you have 2 test strips left!  Back to town to the nearest chemist to see if they sell the test strips you want - they do!  How much!! Holy crap!!  Buy a couple of boxes and home again.

Lets see what happens!

Next instalment - First (Last) Supper, First Real Test & NHS Direct.

Begin at the Beginning

"Begin at the beginning and go on the the end: then stop" 

Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

2011 - a great year, good weather, great holidays, excellent clients, loads to do and even more to look forward to!

2011 a year of training for a half marathon in spring 2012, a full marathon by the end of 2012, and the Etap du Tour for 2013.

Training runs and rides were going great, feeling fitter, stronger, faster.  Then, insidiously, I didn't.  

Legs felt heavy and unresponsive, despite the pace being high, and my general energy levels were dropping. It wasn't until a month had passed without going for a run or ride that I even noticed I'd stopped.  By then, however, I justified it as being too busy with work and having "no time"!

Without really noticing I was also a lot more tired of an evening, less rested of a morning and generally slightly 'duller'.

Whoo hoo!  November 2011, 44th birthday! Didn't want a party, didn't want to go out. Didn't really want to do anything.  For some reason I was also, for the first time in my life, putting sugar (!) into tea and coffee..... November rolled into December and by now my thirst was not slacked by even a litre of water, no I was on three of four litres of water a day, a litre over night and consuming litre bottles of lucozade and two litre cartons of fresh orange juice in between!  A mars bar, packet of crisps and 75cl of lucozade on the way to work, same on the way home, scoffing packets of crisps like they were going out of fashion and weeing for England! 

Oddly, none of this struck me as unusual.

Along came Christmas, even less enthusiasm for doing anything, massive, constant headache; "loose stools", constant stomach ache and boy, oh boy, talk about a sense of humour failure!  There were some very dark thoughts running through my head over that month, increasingly dark.

Or maybe that was the blurry vision that seemed to have crept up on me?

"I wonder if I've been changed in the night?

Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning?

I almost think I remember feeling a little different."

December 28th 2011 and I decided that perhaps some exercise would help.  Went out for a gentle 2 mile run. It seemed to take forever, but actually, the pace was OK.  

The three days it took me to recover weren't.  I could hardly walk the next day, felt sick as a dog and utterly fatigued.  My wife wanted to know why my breath smelt of booze the next morning, odd as I hadn't drunk any alcohol the night before.  Three days feeling sick and just drinking water constantly.

By now the headache, night sweats, loose stools and stomach ache had even me convinced that I should go and see the doctor, so on January the 16th I duly went to see my GP.

Mmmmmm sugar in your urine, come back and let us take some blood. Was told to stop eating anything sweet and heard the word "diabetes" for the first time.

Thank you google and the diabetic online community!

26th Jan 2012 and I was on insulin.