Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Longer Account of GI Visit

I went to the GI doctor on Monday. I had a stomach ache at the time of the visit (ugh) but he didn't even palpate my abdomen. My appointment was for 1:45, I arrived around 1:25. I finished filling out forms at 1:40. I didn't sign all their forms- I didn't sign that they could call me to solicit money (!) and I didn't sign that they had given me a notice of privacy practices because they didn't give me a notice of privacy practices. I felt that the receptionist was not exactly happy with me. Around 2:05 somebody announced, "Patients of Dr. K, attention patients of Dr. K, Dr. K is running 30-45 minutes late."
So I went to the bathroom. I got called in by a nice nurse around 2:30. She said the form that the receptionist gave me was the wrong form, and filled out another patient history form and listened to me and measured my pulse (72). She move to test my blood pressure on the arm that my sensor was in and I remembered just in time to tell her to test the other arm. My blood pressure came in at 120/80. That is the highest I've seen it since March when I had pancreatitis. I'm not sure if it was elevated because of pain or what. Anyways. She weighed me in at 100 lb, asked me my height. I said I'm a little under 5'. She looked me up and down and told me I looked 5' and put my height down as 5', which I thought was a bit unorthodox, but okay.
Then I waited and waited and waited and waited for the doctor, who came in around 3:15ish. He listened to me, typed, drew a picture, and came out with two recommendations: an upper endoscopy (like the type they do to test for celiac) to test for a peptic ulcer or gastroparesis, among other things, and an MRI of the abdomen to see if there's residual pancreatitis (among other possibilities). I asked him some questions about endoscopies- I'm particularly worried about sedation. He says he strongly recommends sedation, and particularly for me. He says there'll be an anesthesiologist there. He said he had mornings available, except Thursday, and it's not a problem that I usually have to work afternoons.
He sent in another nurse to schedule me. She ---- ugh--- got to be the bearer of the bad new that in fact, he didn't really have any mornings available very soon, and that anyways hospital policy is you shouldn't work on the day of the procedure. Also that they don't really recommend afternoon procedures for diabetics because of the NPO bit, and that they require somebody be there to pick me up and drive me home. If you couldn't guess, I don't have anybody to pick me up and drive me anywhere anytime. I said this to the nurse and she gave me the number of the hospital's chauffer thing.
Anyways, I'm taking off of work two weeks from today. The appointment is midday which means I can't even work the morning. Somebody in my queer and disabled support group later that day told me that xe was available to come to the hospital and pretend to be driving me home- hopefully they don't insist on validating a parking ticket. I don't think they will because in the actual papers they gave me about hospital policy, it says that somebody must drive me home or accompany me on the bus. So... I think xe will probably accompany me most of the way home. Or to my evening tutoring gig, I haven't decided yet if I think I should cancel.

I'm wondering if I should do a trial run of fasting since the endoscopy will be around noon and I'm not supposed to eat after 5:30 AM. Unfortunately right around noon is when my blood sugar most frequently takes a nose dive.

The Dexcom was showing my blood sugar as being much flatter than it was on Monday and Tuesday and I really wasn't able to trust the readings so when it hit the one week mark this morning I pulled it. It had gone to ??? in the last half hour anyway. It's my first arm sensor that didn't do so great.
About half an hour ago my father helped me put in a sensor on my abdomen. It's closer to my belly button than I've put one before, in an area where shots usually hurt more and feel kind of icky in a non-hurt way (for me). But it looks more fatty and isn't hurting too much and it's starting up now so I hope it does okay.
The sensor will, if it's still in, hit the two week mark right before the endoscopy. I figure none of the other abdomen sensors were really functioning at two weeks, so I'll probably be wearing one on my arm by the time of the endoscopy, but even if not- they're not really concerned with the outside of me, just the inside. So maybe it doesn't matter.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Jonah, I wish I were there to drive you home. I'd slap you in the minivan with Bridge and Joe and off we would go. I am a little nervous about your NPO bit too. I hope the nose dive doesn't happen...aren't there any other MD's that can do this procedure earlier on in the day? I think it is ridiculous that you have to wait that long.