Tag Archives: Hospitals

Gimme some sugar…………

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I have found the Fountain of Youth, or so the news tells me.

For the last three or so years, I was trying desperately to get a medication removed from  my brother-in-law’s med list. The medication was called Metformin.

Larry was put on the medication to keep his blood sugar under control. One time…ONE TIME…when he was in the hospital or was having a particularly difficult medical time, he had a blood sugar test that was way out of line.

His doctor decided that he would put him on Metformin and keep an eye on his blood sugar just to make sure it wasn’t an aberration.

It was an aberration.

Every time he was admitted to the hospital in the last  years of his life, which was at least a dozen times and because he was on Metformin,  a drug used for diabetics to keep blood sugar under control, he had to eat a diabetic diet.

Larry hated a diabetic diet. Diabetics hate a diabetic diet. But Larry wasn’t a diabetic and about the only thing he enjoyed besides smoking and honey or sugar in his tea, was eating. None of which were permitted on a diabetic regimen.

He also had to have his blood sugar tested. This they did by pricking his finger before every meal. He despised that too. He couldn’t do it himself because MS robbed him of dexterity. Poking and prodding had become a daily occurrence in so many ways. Adding one more prick to the pile just…well pissed him off.

With each hospital admission, I would request that they review the medication list and his daily blood sugar and try to get him off the Metformin. In the meantime, he had to stay on that god awful diet and be prick insulted.

I won’t lie. I’d bring contraband into the hospital. I’d bring sugar for his tea. I’d bring hoagies and Peppermint Patties. Yeah, I did it. Sue me. If I could find one less thing to make his life miserable, I would do it. Because, by the way, he was NOT diabetic. Oh that.

I lobbied for that damn Metformin to go away with doctors in hospitals, doctors in nursing homes, doctors in rehab centers, and doctors’ offices. I even got some doctors to agree.

But here’s the rub.

Once a drug is on your list of meds at a hospital and you go back to the same hospital again and again, they never change that drug list. I’m pretty sure it takes an Act of Congress to make that change. Pretty sure Congress hasn’t agreed on anything since the 1800’s.

I went so far as to  change hospitals and was successful for a few days, until they decided he needed a heart healthy diet. It stopped the pricks (in so many ways) but he still couldn’t have sugar in his tea.

She could be 100 years old!
She could be 100 years old!

Yesterday, on a long drive to the airport during rush hour, I heard Robin on the Howard Stern show (yes, you now know one of my dirty little secrets….I love Howard) report that a new drug may help us to live to 120 years old!! Howard loved that idea, if you are lucky to be healthy and enjoy another 50 or 60 years.

This miracle drug is…………..you guessed it…………….Metformin. If you can navigate your healthcare or you want to live in a world of pricks.

“You Just have to Laugh…..”

© 2015 Cathy Sikorski

 

 

10 Doubts and Desires for 2015……

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HAPPY NEW YEAR  to all my kind and faithful readers!  In the spirit of the New Year, I am taking a Nostradamus point of view and a Pollyanna perspective.

Five things that will not change in 2015:

1. Medical Insurance Companies will not make our lives easier:

I know this is true, because I have already received confusing literature about co-pays, prescription drugs, and durable medical equipment. This from three different places for my brother-in-law, myself, and my friend with the traumatic brain injury. Wading through complicated, confounding medical gobbeldy gook will continue as before.

2. Hospital stays will still make everyone crazy.

Now, granted, no one likes to be in the hospital. But as my brother-in-law just returned home from a bout with the flu (yes, we all had flu shots, to no avail) it still rankles that your own doctor doesn’t come to the hospital any more. You get a ‘hospitalist’ who doesn’t know you, does tests you probably don’t need (because he doesn’t know you) and get a crappy diet because they think you’re a diabetic when you’re not.

3. The skirmish about Obamacare

I am all for everyone having health insurance…..as frustrating as it can be, because I’ve seen first hand what happens when you don’t have it. However, when the new and improved arrives, there will always be problems, glitches and the need to massage it into a better place. And when it is a hot button political issue to boot, well, the conversation will continue to exasperate us all like those year end car sale commercials……endlessly.

4. Dieting

Yep. Here we all are again. Like my Nana used to say, “fat, ragged and sassy.” Will we never cease this battle? Nope.

5.  Facebook.

That’s it. Just Facebook. Persistently annoying and enthralling as it was in 2014 and will continue in 2015.

Five things that will change in 2015:

1. Hotels will give you free WIFI.

Yep. I discovered that in today’s newspaper. Yes, I still have delivered and read an actual newspaper (perhaps that too will end in 2015, but not because I want it to).

2. Airline fares will abate.

C’mon. They just have to. Fuel prices are dropping like flies every day.  The excuses are running cold. Airlines need customers like a fish needs water. Obviously metaphors and similes will dictate cheaper airfares.

3. Customer Service will improve

See #1 and #2. Pundits claim that true business success will return to the customer service model. We can only hope, as customers, that is.

4. People will be kinder and gentler.

I think we are all getting tired of boisterous debate. I declare 2015 the year of the kinder, gentler human being. We saw the film, “Unbroken” on New Year’s Eve. The humiliation of one human being to another is probably the most palpable part of that movie. Perhaps people will stop that, and just be nice, goddamnit.

5. People will stop dieting and laugh more.

We all know that by February 1st most diets will end. And thank God, people don’t seem to laugh so much when they are eating celery and carrots, and nothing else. I predict beer sales and comedy clubs will begin to prosper right around Ballentine’s Day. (yes, I said Ballentine, but for those of you who didn’t grow up on the East Coast, Valentine’s Day is just as good).

I wish you all a happy, hilarious 2015……because……..

You just have to Laugh……..

©Cathy Sikorski 2015