Since my spring semester has wrapped up at
college I decided to take the challenge and participate in blog week. Today’s topic is Share and Don’t Share-
#DBlog Week Day 1.
Most often we are lucky if our 3 month
checkup endo appointment is 30 minutes.
Many only get 15 minutes. I
recently moved 6 hours away from home and only had 1 endo appointment which was
a good half hour long, but also my first patient appointment. I go for my 2nd appointment and 3
month follow up on July 2nd so I will see how much time I get.
What bothers me the most is that I pay a $40
copay to see a specialist, in my last appointment was a NP, and in the past I
was lucky if I had 15 minutes with the NP or doctor after waiting over an hour
in the waiting room. If they see 4
people an hour back to back for these 15 minutes, they are making $160 an
hour! This in my opinion is highway
robbery. No of course copays vary among
insurance companies and their plans. I
really feel badly for those without insurance though as how do they afford
these valuable appointments.
Now what I wish I had more time to share about
all the good things D led me to. Like all
the cool people I have met in day to day life, online, at D camps/conferences/events/etc. How these people have help molded and
encouraged me to be the person I am today.
My best friend (who our parents jokingly say we are twin sisters separated
at birth) I am so grateful for her…she lives in England, me in the US. I have many world-wide friends. There is just a common language us D families
share.
I would like more time to learn more advance
skills. I am very anal with my D
management. I do not like to go below 90
and over 150, I like it best when I hover around 100. I want to learn more how to make my cgm as
useful as it can possibly be. I want to
learn to make the best out of my pump. I
want to improve and have the best control possible. Sadly there is not enough time for this
education (or maybe it isn’t available everywhere) in our 15-30 minute checkups.
I would like to be able to share my daily
challenges with my D team. I want to
learn tools to overcome them. Like how
to manage buffets with gastroparesis, how to handle family parties where the
food isn’t what I normally eat, etc.
There are so many more advanced skills others have than me that I want
to learn. But there is no time for the D
team to teach them.
Since most D teams do not have the time to
cover these things I have turned to other D families, the DOC, and other long
term D friends and have developed my own tricks and tools. I would love to share these with my D
team. Sadly there is just not enough
time. Most endo offices are over loaded
with patients. There is such a huge
need, and not enough endo’s and cde’s to cover the high demand. I think pediatric endocrinology is affected
the most, but over all we are lacking doctors who want to specialize in
Diabetes. People do not get the time
they deserve, some people cannot even afford to have access to a D team. This is something that should not be
happening, but sadly it is.
