Diabetes

As mentioned in the last post, I had my blood work taken at my GP when I went in for the breathing issue. That was a mess. I have awful veins that die out on a good day. It was this phlebotomist's first day. My vein died out and he had to try a couple more times. I ended up laying on the bed in there because of a combination of the needle and issues with breathing. I didn't get the results of those tests for about a week.

I got a letter in the mail saying that I needed to make an appointment with my GP to talk about my blood tests. Pretty standard and I figured they were normal because I get that letter all the time with the amount of blood tests I get.

I went in and it was not normal. He said that my blood sugar and cholesterol were high. He didn't want to diagnose me yet but he thought I might have diabetes and set up a chronic illness plan. (Which has to do with what we're given through Medicare) I had to go make appointments with a dietitian, an exercise therapist, and a diabetes educator.

I left the place and started bawling on my way home. I was completely freaking out which is weird because more than anything I want a diagnosis. I didn't even freak out when they found the brain tumour. But then again I sort of new in the back of my head (which is funny since that's where the tumour was!) and I was on a lot of painkillers when they told me.

Rohan was at work but luckily it was still early enough that my mom was awake. We skyped and she helped to calm me down. She told me that she wanted to see my results because she's always had high cholesterol and was interested in seeing mine. I didn't get the results but I could get them the next time I went to the doctor.

When Rohan came home he was a great help. He helped me to realise that this would be a good thing because it was a diagnosis and I've had a lot of symptoms that could all be linked back to diabetes. Sure I'd have to monitor what I ate, but the medication for diabetes has come such a long way. (As one of my few memories of my late grandma is her jabbing her stomach with insulin because she had type II diabetes.)

About a week later I had my first appointment with the dietitian. I had Rohan go with me since he makes all of our food. She gave us some information and goals for the next time we came. When I was leaving, I asked for a copy of all of my previous blood tests. I was looking at them on our way home and found something strange. It had my blood sugar level, but it said fasting next to it. I had eaten breakfast two hours before my blood test. I was most definitely not fasting. I looked up the range for healthy non-fasting (random) blood tests online. Mine was perfectly in that range!

I made an appointment with my GP for the next day and he told me that I was right. There must have been a clerical error when entering my blood work into the system. I didn't have diabetes after all. It was a mix of relief and frustration because now we were back to square one with no diagnosis.

He still wanted me to see the dietitian about my high cholesterol but she didn't seem worried about it when I went back. It's only a little high and I explained to her that my mom has always battled with high cholesterol despite every type of medicine, food/diet, or exercise she's done.