I promised y'all I'd give you the whole scoop, so here it is.
As I said, I spent this past weekend in the hospital, much to my surprise. I was coming out of a salon where I'd stopped to buy some of my favorite lotion, and shortly after I felt the door close behind me I remember waking up on the concrete sidewalk, looking up into the extremely tan faces of the girls from the salon. Now, I'm sure they're very nice people, but it's a little unnerving to wake up and find yourself in the care of someone whose next comment is "Like, oh my God, here's, like, some ice. Don't move, K?" My first thought was "Oh my GOD, am I in hell?!?!?-- because I'm surrounded by a pack of valley girls..."
Needless to say, the paramedics had been called. I had one of them call my husband, who promptly raced to meet us at the hospital. One of the paramedics got my cell phone for me and asked if I wanted to call him from the ambulance. (All the while I'm on my back strapped to a gurney.) As he was a little freaked, hubby forgot to turn on his cell phone, much to the amusement of the EMTs.
As we pulled up to the hospital, my cell phone rang-- it was hubby-- who asked where I was. When I told him he rather flatly asked where I was, and when told, said blankly, "Oh, I think I'm looking at you. Hmmm. See ya in a sec." More amusement from the (very handsome) EMTs.
Anyhoo, they brought me inside and did the whole workup-- blood tests, X-rays, CAT scan, etc. (The nurse who drew my blood was a dish-- strong tall drink of coca-brown goodness. Good God DAMN. Evey as woozy as I was I could see that.)
All normal-- except that my blood glucose was 570. Normal range, by the way is 80-140. At this point, one very asshole doctor came in to interview me on that particular subject.
Now, let's be clear, my entire family of in-laws was there in the room-- two medical professionals included. This man had the lack of bedside manner to look at me and snidely say, "Did you know you're a diabetic?" and proceed to rattle off symptoms to me like I'm supposed to know what's going on. I thought my father-in-law was going to smack him. Dad's been a family practitioner for twice as long as I've been alive. My mother-in-law was fuming. That is never a good sign.
At this point I dissolved into tears and things got a little hairy. Dr. Asshole had Jane Doe Medical Student come in to sew up my lip, which apparently I'd smacked on the side of a parked car on the way down. I'm all for training med students in the ER, but supervision, people, is the key. She didn't numb my lip enough, or at least not in the right place. Three stitches with full feeling is no picnic, but I was so anxious to get on with it that I sucked it up and said almost nothing. At this point the insulin that they gave me caused my legs to cramp up-- if you've never had that happen, I hope you never do. Imagine each muscle cramping in the direction of its respective pull-- all at once. AAAACK.
After we got that resolved, they admitted me upstairs under the care of a new doc, who was wonderful, and there I stayed for two days. Let me make a couple of observations at this point-- first of all, hospital food has improved dramatically. I actually looked forward to meals. Also, the hospital beds are one of the coolest inventions ever-- they're glorified Aero beds, complete with elaborate sensors so you never have excessive pressure on any one point of contact. That made the whole thing a lot nicer too.
The nurses were really great, and I'm very thankful for the care they gave me. The doc was wonderful too-- I'm feeling a heck of a lot better now. The long and the short of it is that I have Type II Diabetes-- the type that is non-insulin dependant. Rather, my body makes enough insulin, but doesn't use it efficiently, so I'll be on meds twice a day to facilitate that. I'll also be counting calories and food exchanges as well, but so far that's been all right as well. I had to try my hand at it when ordering meals at the hospital, and managed to do it today and keep my blood glucose within reason-- still not down to normal, but getting there.
It's not so bad really, because I can still eat what I want, but I simply have to plan for those little splurges and not go crazy. I'll have a plethora of doctors to visit this week, but that's all right. I'm already sleeping better and have more energy than I've had in a while, and can't wait to get this under control.
