It Helps if You Mention Linda Blair

“I feel like I am not being heard.”

I rasped this, raw from vomiting, weak from dehydration, and shaking from a COVID-related fever and utter exhaustion. 

I had been trying to be heard--to be proactive--for over a day. 

The goal?

To prevent everything I was experiencing.  

I knew that my body would not respond well to the steroids–the only known treatment for Bell’s Palsy.  I had expressed concerns to my GP, who was sympathetic but insistent: “You’ll just have to live with the high blood sugars,” was essentially what he said. 

So I tried. I pushed water. I doubled my insulin dosages. 

And I called my Endo (diabetes doctor) at 2:30 Wednesday afternoon. I left a message–what else could I do to prevent the potential, um, Steroid Show?  

By 6:30 Thursday morning I was nauseous and running at a steady 400 (over 250 higher than one would like). I knew I could not make it through my 9:30 class, but thought I could make it through my 8 am Zoom meeting.  I could not focus. I am sure I rambled. And I was distracted as I repeated "Please help me not throw up" in my head for most of the meeting.

I muted the Zoom and answered my phone when my doctor called–16 hours after I first tried to reach him.

My ability to answer was disrupted as I projectile vomited yesterday’s curry. 

Through my nose.

I did not take kindly to the conversation that followed as I put the phone on speaker and croaked out my greeting from my unswept, hardwood kitchen floor.

Was I taking vitamin C for the Covid? How long had I had Bell’s?  

I was barely conscious.  I did not give a flying squirrel about Vitamin C.  I see now–with full hydration, normal blood sugars, and food in my stomach, that much of that convo was my doctor doing some info gathering.  But I had more pressing issues.

I interrupted him.  

We reset the terms of the conversation.

It went down hill.  

That portion of the conversation revolved around changing my basal rates, the 24-hour insulin dosages in my insulin pump.  I have several different programs.  I wanted to make sure that my doctor was on the right program adjusting the numbers.  But I did not use the right terms.  So we talked in circles. 

I was trying to listen, and be heard, and find the appropriate commands on my pump. I could not.  I quaked and trembled; everything was fuzzy. I moved through water.

“I am struggling to focus and I am asking you to be patient with me,” I barked as he grew impatient.

I laid back down on the cool kitchen floor.  And was talked at, educated, and royal “We’d.”

I was angry. In tears. And extra…irate…first because I was sure the doc was judging me as a “hysterical” woman and second, because I had tried to prevent this situation.

Neither my anger nor my misery had abated by the time I talked to my GP’s nurse. She was responding to my earlier SOS message.

By that point I had talked to my Endo and the Diabetes Educator twice. And I had left messages multiple times.

I had been on the phone for a total of three hours-- through trembles, chills, sweats, stomach cramps, and vomiting that would not stop.  Talking through a jaw that barely opened. Advocating for myself literally hurt.  

So as my GP’s nurse (a lovely woman, and the hero of this story) started to relay his message (“elevated blood sugars will be normal”), I cut her off.  

“I feel like I am not being heard.”  

She must have heard the steel in my voice–what we in my family call “the teacher voice.” 

She stopped. 

“I am not talking about mild nausea and vomiting,” I explained. "I can handle that. I am talking Linda Blair Exorcist levels.”

“Let me transfer you to the doctor."

She did. 

We talked.

He listened.

And we made some substantial changes to the steroids and antivirals that were conspiring against me. 

So lesson learned–if you want to successfully advocate for yourself, it helps if you mention Linda Blair.