Yesterday
was a hugely positive and enjoyable day for me. Not because I had a excellent
run of blood glucose readings, or because I didn’t bruise myself with a needle.
Not because I didn’t have a hypo or need to think about what I was eating. No…
It was because for over an hour in my diabetes clinic I saw cheerful faces,
heard welcoming and attentive voices, and felt I nothing but enthusiasm and motivation while I was there.
Firstly
my dietician came and chatted to me while I was waiting for my appointment. She
thanked me for answering a few questions for a diabetes newsletter that is
sent out to health care professionals. She’d already thanked me a number of
times via email, but the fact that she stopped and took time to chat to me in
person (when I’m sure she was very busy) meant a great deal to me.
Secondly
I saw other young people in the clinic! Real life young people - not like the
ones you see on the front of diabetes leaflets, but people who still had all of
their limbs, and were smiling too… always a good sign when you’re in a
hospital! Then
whilst I was sat in my consultant’s office the DSN who ran my education course
(JIGSAW) popped her head round the door to say hi and comment on my hair. The
fact that she’d noticed I’d changed my hair made me smile because it showed she
was thinking about me… me and not my diabetes, me and not my hospital number,
me and not my a1c result.
Next
up was my consultant who spent over an hour with me; listening to me talk about
my obstacles, concerns, frustrations, achievements etc. An hour is a long time
for an appointment, but in the last 1.5 years I’ve never had an appointment
that’s been less than an hour long! I thought about what he could have gotten
done apart from listening to me rattle on, but he sat and focused on me. He even
laughed at my awful jokes!
In
that hour he reviewed my blood glucose readings from the past 90 days, set me
up with a CGM (as promised) for a week to assess night time hypos, talked to me
about the process of getting an insulin pump, talked me through my test results
and even discussed a persistent problem (unrelated to diabetes) that I’ve had
for 4 years which my GP, sadly, hasn’t been successful in treating.
I’m pleased that my
consultant's recognise that 10-15 minutes isn’t long enough for me to get to
where I need to be. I know that I won’t always need such long appointments, however I am confident that should I ever need more they
will be there for me.
I
left the hospital with another appointment booked for 2 weeks time on a day and
time that suited me. Then I thought to myself about how lucky I am to have such
a dedicated and supportive team who have the tools to help me with my diabetes
management.
I
hear stories every day about people who can’t see any member of their diabetes
team if they have problems, need to take days off work just for one appointment, don’t have access to CGMs and
won’t be funded for insulin pumps. Unfortunately that list goes on and the
people who suffer at the end of the day are the patients. They lose faith in
the system and just have to… get by.
This
truly makes me appreciate what I’ve got, because I know that come September I
won’t be seen at this hospital anymore and I’m already starting to fear that
move. I’ve
seen that one of my previous consultants from the same hospital has posted a
blog that he’s written about Utopian care in the diabetes department. Based on
what I saw yesterday and the support I’ve had over the past 1.5 years I can
definitely say that from my point of view… the diabetes team at Queen Alexandra hospital, Portsmouth, is doing all they can to win the fight for Utopian
care.
I
hope that other diabetes teams take notice… and that soon everyone can walk
away from an appointment with a smile.
Ninjabetic
x