Let’s just get the bad news out of the way upfront…anal cyst, 9.2 A1C, and 180/I don’t remember the bottom number blood pressure.
My doctor pretty much just flipped out on me at least about the A1C and blood pressure (they took my blood pressure three times just to make sure it wasn’t ‘white-coat hypertension’).
The upshot was my Metformin was increased from one tablet per day to two tablets per day. My Lisinopril was increased from 2.5 mg per day to 10 mg per day.
She agreed with me that perhaps I shouldn’t be eating two pints of Open Nature ice cream in a sitting two or three times a week (big surprise there NOT since that’s a minimum of 2000 calories right there not including anything else I was eating during the day).
I gave up the ice cream that day (July 12, 2017); I’ve seen too many friends and family members lose limbs to unchecked diabetes and that is NOT the way I want to go!
I’m supposed to be checking my blood sugar every day too but as usual I am very resistant on that. I have checked it twice since July 12, 2017.
I was frustrated about the high blood pressure since it had been normal (well, slightly high at 123/77) on June 22, 2017 and in stroke danger range less than three weeks later. Yes, I had been taking my low dose of Lisinopril faithfully for that 3 weeks. It had been slightly high (143/80) on June 8 2017 but that was because I hadn’t been taking ANY of my medications for ANY of my conditions since appromixately June 3, 2017.
I bought a home blood pressure monitor and so far my blood pressure has gone down but still isn’t as low as it should be.
As for that anal cyst, that whole mess has been a comedy of errors.
I’ve been waiting to see a surgeon since June 22, 2017–there have been three referrals sent by my doctors’ office to two different organizations.
The first one (Bend Surgical Associates) said they never received the first referral, and when I called them to set up the appointment myself (as recommmended by my doctors’ office) they 1) wouldn’t let me do so and 2) never called back about the status of the referral.
I asked my doctors’ office to resend the referral and they did so on July 6. Another two weeks went by and I still never heard a word from Bend Surgical Associates (almost tempted to shorten that word to ASS since they have been so unhelpful!!)
At that point, I requested that the referral be sent to another organization and my doctors office sent it to St. Charles Surgical Specialists.
St Charles Surgical Specialist called me the same day that they received the referral which would have been wonderful except for one little thing–they do not have any offices in Bend where I live.
Their closest office is in Redmond (16 miles away one way) and their other offices are in Madras (42 miles away one way) and Prineville (32 miles away one way).
My transportation is shanks mare (walking), Bend’s city bus system (yes they offer a bus to Redmond at $6.00 each way), my bicycle (oh yeah that’s going to happen–not in THIS lifetime or the NEXT!), or a cab that would probably cost $40.00 each way.
So we are back to the drawing board, waiting for yet another referral to another surgical team that 1) will respond to the referral and 2) is located in Bend.