Today's Thoughts 4/26/11 The Doc and the Soda Pop Junkie
A few weeks back it was once again time for my DOT physical. You know, go in and prove once again I was able to walk and talk and chew gum at the same time and therefore able to drive a truck. Naturally being a diabetic the subject of how my sugar came into play. Knowing that the last few months had been particularly hard ones for me, one of the last things I was able to keep an eye on was what my numbers were. What I did know though is those numbers were not even close to being good. I knew my diet included up to twenty four twelve ounce cans of soda pop on some days. That's a lot of pop for anyone. Not to mention the fact that I would go weeks between eating anything that resembled a vegetable. You have got to love that truck stop diet plan.
Anyhow, Doc wanted an A1C test and I told Doc up front that that number was going to be extremely high due to the fact that I was nowhere close to staying on a diet. I was not getting any exercise and needed to get back to doing those things. Of course the test proved me right because when it came back it was over ten. Very high indeed and exactly what I had expected. What I did not expect was after telling Doc that I had fallen of my diet and exercise plan that Doc would add more medication for me to take every day. That just baffled me. If diet and exercise had proving to work in the past, why would one not recommend getting back on that diet and exercise plan again? Thing is, I don't think Doc heard a word I said. Never asked me a thing about what I was eating and never took time to understand just how big a soda pop junkie I had allowed myself to become. Just started in on this new medicine I needed to be taken.
So what's one to do in a situation like this? Continue with all that soda pop and take the extra medication to make it all right? I mean after all, Doc is qualified by the government to certify me to drive a truck so Doc must know what the proper thing to do here is. But me being me and knowing how the government works, I decide to do just the opposite. Yup, AMA, against medical advice I go. Not only do I not start taking the added medication but I stop drinking all that soda pop. Nothing but water and I'm down to just one soda pop every few days. I plan on never drinking another very soon now. It's hard to walk away from an old friend.
On top of that I start my walking again and a few light exercises, add lots of green vegetables back into my diet to replace all the doughnuts I was using for meals and my sugar drops so far that I had to cut my normal medication in half to keep from crashing. Now I'm planning on working the carbohydrates down to a reasonable level and I'm pretty sure I'll be cutting that medication in half once again. I'm thinking Doc is going to be a little pissed but quite surprised by the outcome of my not following the treatment set up for me. But I'm thinking maybe Doc needs to listen a little closer to what the patient has to say before pushing unneeded drugs.
Now in no way am I promoting one should ever go against the advice giving by a doctor. But I do believe that one should educate one's self and be honest about one's activities and how those activities affect your health. It's not your doctor's reasonability to keep you healthy, it's yours. The doctor is just a tool for you to use as you take responsibility for your own health. I could have taken the extra drugs but to me that would have been just an excuse to continue on with my bad behavior. Just a crutch to carry me through until I ended up taking insulin. And that would have cost me my CDL. So for me no more meals of soda pops and candy bars. Proof positive that reasonability really does suck. Oh well.
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