Hello and welcome to the forum! Tell us more about yourself ...
Ah, my two favorite things in one spot: words + me.
I was born in GA the daughter of a Methodist minister. We moved about every 3 to 4 years. Including college, I've moved 13 times in my life. We've been near ATL for going on 9 years, and that is the longest I've ever lived in one town or house.
I have two brothers and a sister (she is also type 1—misdiagnosed as type 2 for several years) and I am the baby in the family and even though I'm about to be 40 they still treat me like it sometimes.
I spent ten years in college and graduate school, racking up various worthless degrees (A.S. in Chem, B.S. in Bio, M.S. in Bio) and finally settled on pharmacy, which I love.:nerd:
I worked retail pharmacy for about 4 years until 9/11 happened. Then I decided life was too short to do something you hate every day, so, knowing very little about hospital pharmacy, I applied for a job at a hospital where one of my former pharmacy student employees was doing a residency. Somehow, I tricked them into hiring me, and I've been there going on 9 years. And that student is now supervisor over my department, which I think is freaking awesome.
As for the beetus, I was diagnosed my next-to-last year in Rx school, about 5 months after I'd gotten married. I lost about 30 lbs without trying, I was thirsty ALL the time, and I had recurrent infections. We were studying diabetes in depth and as my professor went down a list of symptoms, I realized I had experienced almost all of them. I made an appt. with the student health center to have my fasting glucose checked.
That morning, I went in and they did a fingerstick (not what I was expecting) and it was over 300. The nurse got all nervous and kind of acted like she wasn't real sure what to do about that. I'm sure they were used to dealing with the flu and birth control pill refills mostly, so I rocked their world a little.
The doctor seemed to have a little better handle on the situation and she started me on glyburide 5mg and said she'd see me in a week. I bought a glucometer and checked my sugar every morning. It never dropped below 300, and once, after I stupidly ate a bunch of corn chips (I didn't know better...no one told me what to eat or not eat)it went to 540 and it freaked me out. I titrated my dose up to 15mg by the end of that week but my fbg was still 300 or more.
So I went back to student health and this time the doctor was more aggressive. She admitted it was beyond her scope and referred me to an endo she knew at Med College of GA and got me an appt that same day.
The endo was a very nice woman who was very matter-of-fact about everything. She was confident, she put me at ease, and she explained everything and answered all my questions. Then she had a nutritionist come in and we talked about food. Within a month, she had me carb counting, and within 3 months of starting insulin, I converted to Humalog which was pretty new back then. In fact, one of my classmates had just done a new product review on it for the faculty.
My roommate was interning at K-Mart and I went there to have my insulin filled and it was so new they had to order it. I had never really grasped the whole insulin thing, even after studying it in class (half ass) so my roommate kind of went over it with me and then I went home and tore through all my textbooks to learn whatever I could.
I grew up in the 70s, and back then it was still kind of a social stigma to have it. When I was a kid, I only knew two diabetics and they were total opposites. My maternal aunt, who was diagnosed at 13 and had always been very careful of her diet and very compliant, and a family friend who had the floppety feet, was half blind, and still ate donuts for breakfast.
By the late 90s, when I was dx, it was no longer kept so hush hush and more and more people were being dx, plus I was in the middle of rx school so I was surrounded by healthcare people and it was just not a big deal.
It was more difficult to explain to people I'd known
before the dx, esp. if I hadn't seen them in a while.
Oh, by the way, I now have diabetes. It just seemed awkward.
I have a pretty good sense of humor about it all, but there are two things that really grate on my nerves. Ok, lets make that three:
1) When the movies and TV get it backwards and have characters act all sweaty and shaky (low symptoms) because they lost their insulin. I'm looking at you,
Con Air.
2) When people say, "Oh, I could never give up sugar!" I
highly doubt those same people would go up to someone with cancer and say, "Oh, I could never wear a wig!" Insensitive morons.
3) Jokes about shooting up like diabetics are some kind of IV drug junkies. Especially if accompanied by hand motions like smacking the arm to find a vein. Not only is this
NOT. FUNNY., it is woefully inaccurate, and that drives me nuts. (See #1) First off, I don't inject insulin into my
ARM. Second, it's a sub-q injection. Get a clue.
I know I need to yank a knot in my own chain, so that's why I'm here.
Thanks for the warm welcome.:tea:
