Doctor M Has Got To Be Full Of It!

I was diagnosed with type-two diabetes probably three years after I actually caught it.  I guess you don't catch diabetes.  It's one of those nasty diseases that creep up on you. When it gets you, it's time to take things a little more seriously.  Or, you can do what I did. Ignore it and keep taking more medicine.  Life's great until they amputate a leg or a foot or a toe.  I guess losing a toe is a small price to pay. But, I never get off easy.  They'd end up amputating right below my head.

My family doctor is also my second cousin once removed or my first cousin twice removed or she used to be my cousin but a long court case ended up having me removed.  I can’t remember.  I do know two things, first, she’s younger than me, and second, she’s my mother’s first cousin.   Does this happen anywhere else but Utah?  My grandmother’s brother is having children after my grandmother's daughter already has three?

My point is: my family doctor is a relative.  I’m going to call her doctor M.  M and I grew up camping together; she with her parents and siblings, me with my grandparents.  After medical school she settled into a practice in Pleasant Grove.  When we moved to Pleasant Grove a few years ago, I looked her up.  She agreed to be our family doctor, but made it clear that even if she’s the last doctor on earth, she will never, ever give me a full physical exam!  This is wonderful news.  Because of my doctor, I haven’t had a physical in years.

Doctor M knows our family history, she knows about the drunken parties, the arson, the bank robberies, the illegitimate children…  She also knows our medical history, including the history of my brother that’s now my sister.  Worst of all, she knows that we have a history of diabetes. 

I started seeing M as a doctor about seven years ago.  I’d come in with the sniffles, or a sore throat, or the occasional catheter.  Every time I’d come in, she’d say, “We need to check you for diabetes!”  She’d say it urgently, like it was a big deal or something.  She always wanted to know if I was fasting.  Why would I fast to go see the doctor?  I don’t know… the things they teach in medical school...  Anyway, I’d always say, “No, I ate three donuts an hour ago.” 

This went on for a few years, I’d visit, she’d get all up in arms about diabetes, I tell her how I enjoyed the pre-appointment donuts and how I was planning on eating a few more after I left her office.  Then, one day she caught me off guard.  I wasn’t planning for it.  It was an early appointment.  She asked if I was fasting.  Before I could get out the donut story, she asked, “When was the last time you ate?”  I don’t know what I was thinking, but I told her the truth, “Ummm… probably around midnight.”  She was excited.  Then she told me why.  She said that I need to be without food for at least eight hours so they can test my “fasting” glucose levels. Apparently this test shows if you're diabetic.  Just like that.

She sent me over to the lab; they stole several vials of my blood.  One diabetes test requires them to take four hundred and fifty vials of my blood?  I check the phlebotomist’s reflection in the mirror.  I used to be able to watch them draw my blood, but my wife must be slipping whimpify flakes into my Wheaties.  I have to turn my head.  I whimper like a small child when I feel the prick of the needle. 

It’s about a week later.  I’m happily minding my own business insulting people on internet forums when the phone rings.  I never answer the phone.  Not because I’m lazy (HA! I’m lazy), but because the phone is never, ever for me.  The phone is for me.  It is doctor M.  She says she has bad news.  I have type-two diabetes.  I have to start on an oral medication called Metformin.  Plus I have to start eating better and exercising more.  Also, she said something about my blood having the consistency of brown gravy, and my triglycerides being the highest she's seen in her medical career. Whatever.

You know by now that I can enthusiastically dive into any new diet with vigor right up until the cheesecake arrives.  I can say no to every other vice except food.  To put it another way, I didn’t take care of myself.  The Metformin worked well controlling my blood glucose, but I had to keep increasing the dose.  After a couple of years, I was at the maximum allowable dose.  The next step was either an expensive pill or to begin insulin injections.  The injections are easy; I just pinch up a small piece of fat on my belly, stick in a needle, and push the plunger.  No big deal.  So, I had a choice.  I could sell my children into slavery, or take insulin injections.  I really do miss my kids.  Sometimes.

I’ve drawn up insulin in a syringe.  I’ve pinched up several pounds of fat (there are no small pieces of fat on me).  I am sitting.  I want to be closer to the floor when I faint.  Now I’m staring at the syringe.  Now I’m staring at the syringe.  Now I’m staring at the syringe.  I take a deep breath.  I screw up my courage.  Now I’m staring at the syringe.  Finally, I plunge the syringe into my belly.  I plunged the syringe in my belly about the same way I enter a cold swimming pool, one micrometer at a time.  It didn't hurt, at least not too much.  It was no big deal.  This is going to be easy.  The next time I give myself a shot, I hit a nerve.  My eyeballs explode.

When I started to consider gastric bypass surgery, doctor M told me that it would cure my diabetes in just a few days.  When I talked about gastric bypass surgery with another doctor, he said the effectiveness of bypass surgery curing type-two diabetes is remarkable.  I told myself, these doctors are full of it!!!  I can see the type-two diabetes going away months after the surgery when I've lost a lot of weight, but within days of the surgery?  No way.

When I attended the orientation at RMAP, they said that in most cases, type-two diabetes is cured within a few weeks if not few days.  I’m still thinking, no way, but I've heard it enough now that I’m getting excited thinking about not having to take Metformin and give myself shots and check my blood glucose and check my feet for sores and watch for numbness in the lower extremities and hit nerves in my belly and get new eyeballs.

They did not give me Metformin during the two days in the hospital.  They gave me small doses of fast acting insulin around mealtimes.  Very small doses.  The doctor sent me home with instructions to not take Metformin ever again.  He told me to reduce my insulin dose to one-fifth of normal.  Two days after being home, I was getting very low blood sugar due to too much insulin.  I reduced the dose to one-tenth of normal; I still had low blood sugar.  I quit insulin.  I checked my blood glucose.  It is normal.  I check it later, it is normal.  No oral medication, no insulin, normal blood sugar?   I start to think my glucometer is broken.  I check it again.  My fingers are starting to look like I've been playing ‘toss the porcupine.’  My blood glucose level is still normal.  I check my blood regularly over the next few days.  I can't believe it.  I've been cured. 

Surgery on Monday, diabetes free by Friday.  Just a few days.  Huh?  I guess they were right.


PS. As far as I know, my brother is still my brother.  I haven't seem him for a while though. Hopefully he doesn't send me a photo of himself in a nice red dress... or a bikini. Especially a bikini.  Just the thought of that makes me envision Mrs. Sasquatch at the pool.  Sorry.