As the morning progressed yesterday, Mark became convinced he was developing a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) because he had some discomfort in urinating and more frequency. It could explain the high fever for those two days, but whenever I had a UTI, I always had extreme pain, sometimes blood in the urine. It could also explain the high sugars, which continued throughout yesterday in the mid-200s. The sugar was still in the mid-200s this morning, and he still feels like something is wrong when he urinates. He is eating virtually no carbs, so sooner or later he's going to get constipated again like he was for years when he ate virtually no fiber.
Well, yesterday morning he called the number from Family Physicians Group that on their website said it would tell us which office in their group took walk-ins. Their website claims they take walk-ins, but our office does not. We know this because we have tried four times to get in. Twice we called in the morning because Mark had pain and were told to go to the ER, which we did. It was NOT an ER sort of thing, but we did it anyway. We reported that to our doctor on our next regularly scheduled visit, and she said just to walk in. So the next time it happened, which was me when my cyst was draining and bleeding in August, I walked in. I was told to go away, no appointments available. I went to another Family Practice about half hour away that took walk-ins. So yesterday, Mark called the number to ask which offices would take a walk-in. The lady said she would connect them (meaning her and Mark) to our local office. He is convinced that the lady on the phone was listening in and that the doctor's office receptionist knew it. He never had them be so nice. She scheduled him for a 2 p.m. appointment. Boom. Done. Great.
Okay, not so great. We went there at 1:50. At 2:15 the receptionist gave him a cup to pee in. At 2:30 she finally took it from him. The lavatory is in the waiting room, so he sat there in full view of all the other patients, waiting with his pee in the cup. That was ridiculous, embarrassing, and unprofessional. I happen to know that in the back there is a bathroom with a two-sided cabinet inside. I had to go pee in a cup in there once. I opened the cabinet door and placed my sample on the shelf. It was a two-sided door going into the lab on the other side. Very private, very nice. Why didn't he get that option?
Then at 3 p.m. the nurse calls his name and we go to the door that leads to the doctor's exam rooms. He stops us in the doorway and says we can go home. The urine lab results will take two or three days, so they will call us. We were OUTRAGED. We explained to him about the fever and the high blood sugars and how he is very concerned that he can't get the sugars down. He smiled and said he would tell the doctor and they would call later.
They never called.
This morning Mark could see the urinalysis results online already. The results are already in. He compared the results to the urinalysis he had in October. It is definitely NOT normal. Many things are elevated that were normal before. It does not look like he has a UTI, but now we are worried about the prostate.
He thinks they are going to be posting more results in a few days because they might be growing more cultures. I'm not sure I believe it. I wish he would call a urologist for an appointment, but we are scheduled to go to a surprise party at 1 p.m. at the Cove. That's what we're doing. He wants to wait until Monday or Tuesday and call the doctor's office for more results. I really don't believe there are going to be more results, nor do I trust that office to call us or treat him appropriately. I think he needs a specialist. He doesn't even need referrals. He could just find one and go. But that's me, not him. He wants to wait. So we wait.
At least we have decided to switch family doctors. Lots of people in Solivita use other family doctors that they like, where they can be seen when they are sick, who are more responsive to phone calls. One place is right across the street from the main entrance to Solivita. Our plan is to call them next week and ask for appointments to be seen to establish us as patients and move on from there. We don't have any appointments scheduled at the old office until April, so we have plenty of time to switch before then.
Meanwhile, Mark has high sugars and abnormal urine and no one seems to care, not even Mark. Well, that's not really fair. He does care and he's worried, but he's not willing to do anything today except wait until he gets really bad or call the doctor on Monday or Tuesday to see if there are any other new results coming in from the urine test. But then what? He can't get the sugars down. All his usual methods (drinking whiskey, drinking 2-4 glasses of water in a row, walking for 15 minutes, eating 6g of carb or less per meal, taking all his meds) are not working. In the past when he has done these things, he is rewarded with much lower blood sugars. He tests before and after, so he knows. He's been testing 4-6 times a day right now, so he knows what's going on, and it's nothing good.
It may finally be time to go on insulin, but we have to rule out that these high sugars could just be a result of an infection going on somewhere, maybe in the prostate. But we don't know. We are just guessing. He really needs a urologist and an endocrinologist down here in Florida that will monitor him closely and find out what's going on.
I will keep everyone posted on this through the blog. I am frustrated because I want some answers NOW, but it's not my body, not my problem. Mark is a much more "wait and see" kind of guy. So we will wait. As long as he feels better, and he does feel better because he has no fever anymore, I think he's willing to wait forever. He never really likes going to a doctor anyway. He always fears what they might do to him. He has always been afraid of having to go on insulin. So we will wait and see.
Can we all say FRUSTRATED?????
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