So now I’m largely in maintenance mode while I wait for the next phase to kick in.
I’ve had two appointments with my GP to get my wounds looked at and work on some other things. She was concerned about my blood sugar and blood pressure, so we adjusted my blood pressure meds and I had to wear a blood sugar monitor for two weeks. This is a 24/7 blood glucose monitor whose data would be dumped two weeks after installation. It gives a nice readout complete with a line graph, percentages for how much time you were in and out of the target zone, etc. Other than that it was business as usual for the next two weeks.
So of course we had friends over the weekend after the monitor was installed. And of course that meant we went to the wine bar and bistro. I don’t think they have a single entrée or appetizer there that isn’t a pile of carbs. Plus the drinks.
When I went in to get the data dump, I knew there would be hatred and recriminations. It really didn’t help that I had gained 14 pounds in two weeks. I got in, the doctor pulled the monitor off me and sent it to be downloaded, then took a look at my leg. We talked about my general health, decided my medication tweaks were working, and the nurse came in with the data dump.
It turns out that through a fundamental misunderstanding of how the numbers work for a diabetic compared to a healthy person, I’ve been holding myself to a much higher standard than I should have been. They looked at the data, said it looked really good except for one day – that Saturday at the bistro – and that I was actually going too low a few times a day. I asked how that was possible, and they informed me the normal range was actually 80-180, where I’d been working with 80-120. So a good chunk of the time when I thought I was ridiculously high, I was well within acceptable.
As for the weight gain, my doctor took one look at the size of my feet and legs, poked me hard just below the knee, and said it was water. So she added another water pill to see if I can just flush it out. She also hooked me up with the diabetic nutritionist/dietitian so I could pick her brain. I tried to have that done when I was in the hostibule, but they couldn’t make it happen. As far as we all know I’m doing it right, but I want to see what else I can do to really make things work.
The next day I had another wound care appointment at the hostibule downtown. I left early to make sure I would beat traffic and get some delicious, delicious White Castle for breakfast. Got to White Castle at 7:15 and found out they didn’t open until 8:00. That’s a problem when you have a half hour or so of driving, ten minutes or so of wandering a hostibule, and have to be there at 8:20. So I dropped a cluster F-bomb and headed downtown with the revised plan of hitting Burger King since there was one not too far from my old neighborhood in north Minneapolis. Driving in, I noticed it was a lot farther from the exit I would need than I could make work. So I wound up heading into my old neighborhood and getting a Breakfast Baconator at Wendy’s right off the freeway. And still made it in on time. Oh yes.
Got the bandages removed, and the doctors and nurses immediately commented on how much better the wounds looked. When they had seen me before, there was a nasty yellowish layer covering most of the wound floor. That was apparently dead tissue, membrane, etc. This time the wounds were almost entirely pink from meat growing back into place. They still look like something out of a zombie movie, but they look like a much fresher zombie.
The wound doc looked at that and said I should keep using the iodine gel because clearly it was working. OK, cool. It isn’t cheap, but the free silver alginate made up for a lot of that expense. Then she had her intern do some curette debridement. I got to lie there and try not to jump too much as she scraped away the uglier spots with a little metal loop. Followed by having the iodine gel rubbed into it. Which felt exactly like a chemical burn on an open wound – which it gorram is.
Wound doc also asked what my plan was for the vein operation. I’d been trying to get in at the hostibule across the river from me, but they weren’t answering my calls, so we decided to take care of it at the downtown hostibule. So I go back on 26 May for a vein study. Yes, the thing with the TV remote and my groinal region. When I asked if that was what they’d be doing, one of the nurses started to object before the other said “you know, that’s a pretty good description of it.” Then I get another round of wound treatments, and we proceed from there.
I got to work afterward and immediately popped half a Vicodin. My boss asked how I was, I told her what it felt like and that I’d almost gone home, and she said to go for it. Then I told her I couldn’t drive and had a half day’s worth of work that didn’t require me to stand up much, and she said to do what I had to. Left after exactly four hours, and all was good. It’s nice working for civilized people.