When Dealing with Doctors You're not Familiar with Stay Alert

I was once told that there would be a day that I'd be in the hospital and I would know more about diabetes then the doctors.

That day has arrived.

For the first time in my life I was hospitalized for something OTHER then diabetes.

I am one who believes that you should trust doctors I mean they didn't go through all that schooling for nothing.  They should know what they're doing. But I guess when it comes to handling someone with TYPE 1 diabetes, they just don't know what to do and then when I tried to explain it to them... they seemed to not hear me.

It's my theory that no matter what I go into the hospital for, above all things, I am a Type I diabetic patient first.  What that means to me is my diabetes should be considered and included in all forms of treatment.  This doesn't mean you just stick me on a diabetic diet and call it a day, which I guess some doctors just find acceptable.  

If you still take injections (like I do) then it's super important that you take your long acting insulin EVERY DAY no matter the circumstances.  When it comes to me I NEVER adjust the long acting insulin, even if I'm not eating anything or it's a sick day.  So please tell me why the day before surgery (I wasn't allowed to eat 24 hrs before) there was a doctor's order in my chart to not give me any insulin including the long acting all day and on top of that the IV I was attached to was 5% dextrose (a type of sugar.) They were to check my blood sugars at what would be meal times on a normal day and if I was high they were directed to use the sliding scale but other then that NO insulin. The nurses and doctors seemed dumbfounded all day as to why my blood sugars where in the upper 200s and lower 300s and when I tried to say, "well maybe it's because the IV your giving me has sugar in it and I absolutely have no insulin in my system" they replied with "well that's our standard protocol for diabetic patients."

That is just scary to me.  I mean these people were going to cut me open in a few hours and I was slightly nervous how my diabetes was going to react to that.  I know that when something stressful happens to the body your blood sugars are going to increase but I didn't expect it to shoot from 150 right before the surgery to 355 immediatly after.

When I was finally feeling better enough to eat and my long acting had been given the next day another formality occured.

The amount of insulin I take depends on the amount of carbohydrates I eat.  So it varies from meal to meal.  I've been very lucky in that sense because it allows me to have more freedom in the food I eat and when I eat it.  As usual when I'm in the hospital I was put on a diabetic diet, which is fine by me, but I noticed that I was not receiving insulin for the food that I was eating (just because it's "diabetic friendly" doesn't mean it's carb free.)  They only gave me coverage for high blood sugars. When I said something about this I was told that my long acting should cover my meals. Which is incorrect information.  Once again all the doctors were dumbfounded as to why my blood sugars remained in the upper 200s to lower 300s all day long.  I told them that they should probably call my diabetes educator because I'm sure she would love to communicate with them as to how my care was handled.  I gave them the number but to my knowledge no such contact was made.