Endo fail

I've been busy. Right? Everyone is busy. My current to-do list is a bit painful, as I'm giving a conference practice talk today, leaving in 9 days for a 10-day trip to Rome, just entertained my in-laws for the weekend, planning a two-year relocation of our lives overseas, and I had an endo appointment today.

I behaved myself, went and had my lab work done two weeks ago. That I wrote in my calendar. But I failed to request that pesky referral until this morning, right when my PCP's office opened, one hour before my endo appointment. This has never been an issue in the past. As long as the referral comes out with the right date, the insurance company processes it with no problem.

For some reason, things have changed at my endo's office. I arrive exactly at my appointment time, and as I'm checking in the receptionist asks about my referral. I tell her it is in the works. And then she checks her computer for it. "Nope, not there yet. Here, update your medications and we'll check again in a few minutes."

So I sit. I update my pump settings for my chart. I start going through this conference paper AGAIN. After a half hour (always waiting), she calls me back up. Still no referral. And now it's 9:00 and the people with 9:00 am appointments are already there. She says, "You can call your doctor's office, but I have to wait until I get the referral to process you. You'll have to wait until after the 9:00 am patients are seen."

"But, this has always been fine before. Never a problem," I say. "I have many other things to do today. If I get that referral faxed over, when can I be seen?"

"It's hard to say. It could be after 10:00 am."

"I can't do that. Why did the referral policy change?"

"It's how the insurance companies work. You'll either have to wait or reschedule."

"Ok, I suppose I'll reschedule, but I'm going out of the country for awhile, leaving next week. And I want my lab results today. I know they are there. What's available next week?"

So, I got set up for next Wednesday, the day before I leave. AND, I insisted upon getting a copy of my lab results. No point waiting to find out my new A1C when it was sitting mere inches in front of me.

And at least that made the trip out to the hospital worth it. New A1C: 5.9! I was happy to see that, and proud of myself for the 4/10ths of a point improvement. But there was still a part of me irked that I didn't get it back down to the 5.7 I maintained last year for 6 months or so. Funny how that is. 5.9 is an incredible number. I should only be pleased with that. But the work of a D-Queen is never done and I will always be hoping that I can do better.

At least I now have another week to plan my visit, to upload my CareLink data, to make my list of questions and concerns, to prepare to tell my CDE that that potential 4-9 month stay in Rome is now 2 years. And, I'll have the chance to double-check that my referral is finished. I've definitely learned my lesson.