Well…the day I’ve been subconsciously dreading has finally arrived.
It’s time for me to part ways with my endocrinologist…the diabetes doctor that I’ve seen for the last decade…more than one-third of my life.
She’s moving onto new things, and I’m sad to see her go. She’s helped me tremendously over the years.
She’s seen me at my “diabetes worst”, when I was a college student who cared more about having a normal college experience than managing my diabetes.
She was the one who finally convinced me to quit MDI in favor of an insulin pump.
She’s one of the few medical professionals I’ve ever interacted with who treated me like an equal – she never made me feel “less than” or inferior to her.
In other words, I was pretty dang lucky to be her patient.
I’m trying to take this forced change in stride. Maybe it will be good to meet with another endocrinologist. Maybe it will help me continue to improve. But I am allowing myself to feel a little upset and sorry over the situation; after all, it’s never fun to part ways with someone, especially when you had no say in the matter.
Guess what else I’m allowing myself to feel?
Gratitude.
I feel thankful for my endocrinologist, so I plan on giving her a card with the following message during our appointment tomorrow…because it’s important to me for her to know all the positive change she’s brought to my life:
Dear [Name Redacted],
I wanted to thank you for all that you have done to help me (and my mom and aunt) in the last several years. You have always motivated me to take better care of myself after every appointment I’ve had with you. I appreciate you for being patient with me, listening to my concerns, and inspiring me to try new technologies and treatments to improve my quality of life with diabetes. I don’t like having a chronic illness, but having a doctor like you around to help me deal with it means the world to a patient like me.
Wishing you all the best in your future endeavors!
Sincerely,
Molly
Hugging the Cactus 
I’ve had 3 endo in my life so far. That’s not including the general practitioner who was trying to play one for the first 15 years of my diabetic life. Only one was a real piece of work. The other 2, including my current endo, are pretty good. They at least seem to listen to my fears and ideas on where my treatment should go. One on the other hand did not seem to notice I was in the room during our consultations. We had a nearly 20 minute argument one day over how to deal with dropping blood sugars. The charts from the CGM and my carb/insulin charts clearly showed a defined drop in level after eating. She wanted to raise my insulin because I was high after eating. I wanted to drop the long term insulin because after the spike it kept dropping. We went round and round before she agreed to try lowering it even farther. To be truthful though this was an anomaly for a diabetic. The Toujeo dose should have been 24 unit for my weight. I was already down 18. She didn’t want to go any lower. Funny though we ended up at 4. Yes 4 units a day and I still had issues with dropping sugars although not as bad. lol The first thing I said when we met in her office is “I am not normal.” I consider myself to have lived up to that standard. lol I just like having a doctor who is willing to listen to and except my input on my treatment. It may be something I have already tried with another doctor. My current long term insulin is none. I am using an intermediate instead to be able to dial it up and down depending on my activity. Down during active day and up during active night. We argued for about 3 weeks about going to this before I finally did it myself with an old bottle of mom’s insulin. Once she saw the results she was onboard with it. So good to hear people having good doctors to deal with.
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