Feb 10, 2015. The day I summoned up the courage to face the fear of a doctor’s appointment I had dreaded. I had put the symptoms together and was pretty sure of the diagnosis so I scheduled the appointment, drove up to the building, and walked through the door. That was the day life changed.

The doctor sent me for blood work. The lab tech took three vials. Three. It almost felt invasive. By the end I thought for sure I was going to get a glass of orange juice and a cookie. That’s been the standard exchange of goods when I’ve given blood in the past. 

The tests came back showing high cholesterol and high glucose. I received a prescription of 500mg of Metformin twice a day then back to the lab to get more blood work. Why can’t they just keep a vial of the old stuff and use it for the new tests? This lab tech said he needed only one vial of blood, but he would also need a urine sample. It seemed like the ante kept going up — there’s only so many things my body produces. I hoped there wasn’t going to be a third visit.

One of the tests requested in the second lab visit was for an A1C number. The test takes the average glucose number over the past three months and turns it into a score. I have to be honest, I find some of the things modern medicine can do simply amazing. The score then determines if you have diabetes. If your score is 6.4 or under, you are diabetes-free — eat to your heart’s content, within reason and according to healthy eating habits, of course. Once the number reaches 6.5 you are diabetic. The medical goal, according to my doctor, is to keep even diabetics under 7.0. I found a chart and looked it over to find my number. It didn’t go high enough. My number was 14.9.

That brings us to today, for the most part. There are other things that have happened. Details mostly. Details of phone calls, checking glucose levels twice daily, prescriptions, and questions of what the future looks like.

My finger tips and right foot have numb sensations that are troubling. I also have pain in my right leg from my knee to my ankle when I sleep. I feel like my body is failing me at the age of 43. Except it’s not just aches and pains and groaning when I stand up. It’s my body not functioning. I know this is controllable. But these are the places my mind goes. I try to rope it back in and find a different story to tell. Even as I type this, I can feel the numbness in my thumb and index finger. 

I put in a call to the doctor today at Brenda’s urging to get the medicine dosage upped. As she described it, it’s like taking baby aspirin for an adult migraine. I’m hoping to hear something back tomorrow. I do have an appointment scheduled with the endocrinologist. (Spell check just had to fix that word. I guess I’m going to have to learn how to spell that.) But that appointment is more than two weeks away. They’re hard to get in to, but I was bumped up in the queue because of the high A1C.

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