Before you read this post you may want to read The Walking Dead in which I describe my first trip to the endocrinologist.  I am so confused I find this a very difficult post to write!

Earlier this week I had my follow-up appointment to my first visit to the endocrinologist.  I had been praying for a diagnosis of some sort because my symptoms in the last few months have become so severe; excessive weight gain, so tired to the point where I have fallen asleep while eating with my family, severely nauseous and more.

I had to wait for more than an hour and a half.  I had come early because I was trying to run an errand before that and I became so nauseous that I decided to just go to the doctor’s office because I could no longer drive. When they first called me, the nurse brought me in to an office and handed me my test results and then said to go back out to the waiting room, the doctor would be with me in a few minutes.  I looked at my lab tests and was horrified because there were many abnormal results including that I had a nodule on my thyroid.  I have never been to a doctor where they give you your lab tests with no explanation!  I sat in the waiting room trying not to cry.  I talked to the woman next to me and started laughing it up because if I didn’t make jokes I would have totally lost it!

Finally it was my turn.  Here is something you never want to hear a doctor say: I don’t understand these results, you are confusing me!

I did appreciate her honesty though.  I have had too many doctors who think they are God, who either don’t believe you at all or try to guess at what is wrong with you.

First of all, she said that yes, I had a nodule but that it was too small to be causing any of my symptoms and we were just going to put a watch on it.

My fasting blood sugar was high.  Just 106 ( a normal range should be up to 99) but because I had gestational diabetes and my symptoms of weight gain, fatigue, and nausea were so severe, she wanted me to see a dietician to start the diabetic diet.  I was in disbelief, although diabetes runs on both sides of my family and I knew I would be getting diabetes sooner or later due to the G.D…I guess no one wants to hear that news.

Diabetes is just one of those diseases that if I had my say, I would pick another.  To me, it is so invasive, life changing.  “But Halloween is coming up, and the holidays!”  “If you keep eating like you are, you are just going to get bigger and bigger.  You are going to bloat up, sweat and just keep getting sicker.”  (Yes, but why did this have to happen during the holiday season??)

My cortisol level was mind blowingly low.  A ‘5’; the scale begins at 6.2.  And here is where it confused her the most.  Low cortisol levels, although they account for my horrendous tiredness, are the opposite of the rest of my symptoms.  Symptoms of low cortisol include blood sugar yes, but LOW blood sugar not high, weight issues yes, but weight LOSS, not gain!

I started to cry.  “I don’t understand, what then is making me so sick, why am I so sick?” “Well, what bothers you the most?”  “I guess the weight gain, it is just so out of control.” “So let’s get you to the dietician first.”  She wrote up a prescription to repeat the cortisol level and some other tests.  She walked me out with her arm around me.  “Don’t worry, we’re going to fix you up.”  She is the sweetest, I must say!  I have to see her November 10th.

I already have cut out the sugars on my own and have lost a couple of pounds and feel a bit better.  So I guess she has something there, ha, ha.

It’s just…Why did this have to happen during the holidays???

No candy for you!