{"id":1358,"date":"2015-05-14T23:40:40","date_gmt":"2015-05-15T03:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/?p=1358"},"modified":"2015-05-14T23:42:55","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T03:42:55","slug":"no-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/?p=1358","title":{"rendered":"NO Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

Changes – Thursday 5\/14<\/a>\u00a0<\/b>
\nToday let’s talk about changes, in one of two ways.\u00a0 Either tell us what you’d most like to see change about diabetes, in any way.\u00a0 This can be management tools, devices, medications, people’s perceptions, your own feelings \u2013 anything at all that you feel could use changing.\u00a0 OR reflect back on some changes you or your loved one has seen or been through since being diagnosed with diabetes.\u00a0 Were they expected or did they surprise you?<\/em><\/p>\n

I read 2 of the posts this morning for the “Changes” theme while I waited at my retina specialist’s office. \u00a0I had an early appointment. \u00a0It was a gorgeous morning. \u00a0I was ready. \u00a0My referral however, was not. \u00a0I have some new doctors since I had to change insurance coverage. \u00a0When I worked with the insurance broker, there was ONE non negotiable\u00a0for my medical\u00a0team. \u00a0I keep my eye doctor.<\/strong> \u00a0No matter what, I keep my retina specialist.<\/p>\n

When I was in my mid twenties I took a job in New York City. \u00a0Maybe a year into the job, I was sitting at my office drafting table with a\u00a0drawing on a piece of graph paper. \u00a0I had an itch and rubbed my eye while looking at my drawing. \u00a0Absolute and complete horror hit me. \u00a0The graph paper turned wavy like that fisheye tool in Photoshop. \u00a0I uncovered my eye and looked again. \u00a0The graph paper looked fine. \u00a0I covered my eye with my hand. \u00a0The graph paper was wavy. \u00a0I moved my head. \u00a0The wavy lines moved. \u00a0If there is a stronger word than horrified, than I was that word. I had changed to New York doctors but I’d never changed retina specialists since I’d moved. \u00a0No way. \u00a0I saw the same retina doctor every year from the time I was a little girl and he was considered one of the best in Philadelphia. \u00a0Its all a blur now (ahhh bad joke), but I went to my parent’s and saw my doctor. \u00a0Yes, non proliferative retinopathy. \u00a0I had laser treatments. \u00a0I was scared out of my damn mind. \u00a0This kept up for maybe another year. \u00a0I had to switch to a New York doctor. \u00a0My Philly doctor was a big shot. \u00a0He recommended a doctor group in New York. \u00a0Only a few doctors in the group took my insurance. \u00a0The Philly doctor immediately named one of them as the guy I needed to see (see? Oh man, I swear I’m not doing this on purpose). \u00a0He told me he was young. \u00a0I didn’t want young. \u00a0I wanted seasoned. \u00a0Philly Dr said this NY Dr just spoke at a retina conference and the head of the NY group was the doctor for a D celebrity. \u00a0Ok. \u00a0I’d give it a try.<\/p>\n

I saw the NY Dr in the late 90s. \u00a0Yes he seemed young. \u00a0He told me I needed more laser. \u00a0This scared me more. \u00a0I didn’t know this doctor. \u00a0He wasn’t the doctor who’d treated me for years. \u00a0Then he told me I had 2 options. \u00a0One was the current laser treatment protocol. The other was much more aggressive treatment. \u00a0Something new. \u00a0I am not doing justice to this story since my brain can’t remember all the technical aspects, but it involved using the laser to cauterize the bleeding vessels AND then to also treat other areas preemptively. \u00a0If other places were going to bleed, to make it so those places would be further away from my center of vision. \u00a0It made sense to me (sort of) and it involved a lot more laser than I’d previously had. \u00a0I could get\u00a0worse before it got better. \u00a0I went for it. \u00a0I’ve lost count of how many times he treated me. \u00a0Sometimes a little laser, sometimes a lot. \u00a0Both eyes were involved. \u00a0He was so nice and enthusiastic and we’d talk design and he made it all seem so positive. \u00a0I would be there for hours and hours waiting. \u00a0Sometimes I cried afterward. \u00a0And then there was a time I didn’t need any laser. \u00a0And another time and another time. \u00a0That last time was over 10 years ago (I think 13).<\/p>\n

So I was the patient today without a referral. \u00a0It took me forever to get someone at my new\u00a0primary\u00a0doctor’s office to answer the phone. \u00a0I was apologizing to everyone in the damn office, as I knew I was screwing up the doctor’s schedule (apparently I really wasn’t but I felt like I was). \u00a0Letters and numbers projected on a mirror, reading test, the wavy graph. I made lots of jokes. \u00a0Waiting. \u00a0Eye scans. \u00a0The room for the tracking laser tomography. \u00a0I walked in and called it “fancy” \u00a0the technician shot me a look (it couldn’t be less fancy of a room). \u00a0As she set everything up, I called it “exciting”. \u00a0Then an “adventure”. \u00a0She said, “well that’s one view of it”. \u00a0So I explained it to her. \u00a0If I consider this an adventure, that the equipment looks “fancy” and this is so freaking exciting, then its a positive set-up. \u00a0Everything is less scary when it’s an adventure. \u00a0She sat back and said, “Ok, let’s get you back on your fancy adventure”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"IMG_1420\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There were some hiccups when I got to see my doctor. \u00a0They couldn’t get the scans to upload but when one of the technicians said, “There’s something wrong”, my stomach sank to my toe. (I thought they meant with my peepers, not uploading the scans). \u00a0My doctor showed me how great my eyes are. \u00a0How beautifully the laser from long ago worked. I saw the\u00a0layers of my eyes and heard how thrilled he is with the results. \u00a0Then he said it,<\/p>\n

“NO CHANGE”. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

He told me how he thinks all my exercise continues to help my eyes. \u00a0Then like everyone I now talk to, we spoke about cycling. \u00a0Seriously I have nothing else to talk about anymore really. \u00a0He is going on a cycling trip in Italy. \u00a0His kids are no longer kids. \u00a0And I walked out, dilated pupils like a cartoon character, and orange sunglasses I got for free at Food Bank\u00a0event, I decided to walk the 30 blocks back to work. \u00a0I put on my music and George Michael’s Freedom ’90 song. \u00a0I know, I’m so old it’s ridiculous. \u00a0I kept the song on repeat the entire walk. \u00a0I was all smiles thinking about the theme of DBlogWeek being CHANGE today. \u00a0If you know nothing about the song I type of, read this: George Michael’s Freedom ’90.<\/a> \u00a0It’s interesting, about his changing. \u00a0I walked with swagger. \u00a0I smiled at every damn person. \u00a0No Change!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I walked in the door of my office and took my iTunes off repeat. \u00a0Next up, Iggy Azalea’s ‘Fancy”. \u00a0My fancy, exciting, adventure to the eye doctor. \u00a0They won’t all be winners. \u00a0I don’t expect them to be and there will be many\u00a0more bumps in the road. \u00a0But today, was a\u00a0No Change<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Changes – Thursday 5\/14\u00a0 Today let’s talk about changes, in one of two ways.\u00a0 Either tell us what you’d most like to see change about diabetes, in any way.\u00a0 This can be management tools, devices, medications, people’s perceptions, your own … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diabetes-blog-week"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2tD0n-lU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1358"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1362,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions\/1362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}