A Different Perspective on Seeing the Light

August 31st, 2010 by Amy Gonsalves Leave a reply »

I like short magazine tidbits not only because I can power through them without realizing it, but now also so that I can share them with everyone who reads this blog.

Today’s little tidbit came to me as I ate breakfast and paged through Diabetes Forecast.  They asked readers what made them take diabetes seriously

My favorite response was from a woman in Atlanta who answered “when my eye doctor wouldn’t write a prescription for new glasses until I brought my blood glucose down.”

Reading that made me almost jump up and give her eye doctor a standing ovation.  I find that doctor rather remarkable.

(For those of you who do not know, eyesight changes with glucose levels in the body.  Some people with diabetes get blurry vision when they are low or high, some people have trouble seeing before they are diagnosed.  The small capillaries in eyes are damaged by higher blood sugar levels and can eventually lead to blindness if diabetes is untreated.  Retinopathy is another complication of diabetes that leads to problems with vision.  Most of us with either type of diabetes get our eyes checked at least annually and have our eyes dilated and checked for early signs of damage.)

So this eye doctor knew her patient has diabetes that the patient wasn’t paying much attention to and she knew that her patient’s eyesight was only going to deteriorate if the patient kept going as is.

So this brave soul said to her patient: Okay.  I’m not going to help you in the short term because that is a band-aid where you need some real, honest to goodness, help dealing with a real underlying condition that is hurting you in the long term.

Gee, what do you think the reaction was to THAT?  Probably not a big squeezy hug from the patient.

But when you look at the situation, that doctor did I think the absolutely correct and right thing.  She helped her patient take diabetes seriously by taking a serious look at the disease.  She helped her patient get to a more stable spot with her blood glucose levels through that frank discussion and then addressed the patient’s vision needs from that spot.

I think that is a real doctor.  Not everything in life is rainbows and roses as we all know on some level—but we still wish it were!  So the fact this doctor was honest with her patient in a way that helped her patient get to a better healthier spot is simply fantastic

Not only am I happy for the patient, I’m happy for the doctor; I know it wasn’t easy for that doctor or for her patient. 

As one of my doctors would say: It’s Your Time.

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1 comment

  1. Peggy says:

    It’s your time!!

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