Part 5 of 12
Self-examination of our legs and feet
for sores and areas that are not healing has scared, finally, the
newest members of our group. Our meeting with the podiatrists showed
them how serious we were and how they were not taking care of their
health as great as they thought. They now understand how important
it is to see a podiatrist on a regular basis.
Brenda called me two days after our
meeting and was wondering if we would be losing a member or two
because of our meeting. I asked why and she responded that two
members had approached her since the meeting and asked why we needed
to know the doctor they were seeing and why we held the meeting and
brought in the two podiatrists.
She said one of them was on insulin and
the other was on metformin. The one was one with a minor cracked
heel and the other was a good friend of her's. Brenda said that we
felt that their health was important and we had always been this way
even when we were a group of six. She said that the one on insulin
had gone along with the call-in program, but was having second
thoughts about this.
Then the following day, Tim was called
by the same person, she said was out of the call-in program and would
no longer be attending our meetings, and hung up. A few minutes
later Tim said, he had a second call and the same message from
another member.
With that, Tim called for a group of us
to get together on Thursday and discuss this. When the ten, A.J,
Jerry, Ben, Barry, Sue, Brenda, Allen, Jason, Tim, and I were
together, Tim asked if we were pushing the members too hard. Only
Allen thought so, but said if the free foot exam had led to this,
then we could be better off without them. Brenda felt secrecy was
behind some of this and the free foot exam was more than they wanted.
Tim said that brings the membership to 30 members then.
Sue said that two others had called her
and were very thankful for the foot examination and having discovered
the problems early. Tim said he had received the same calls. Allen
said this shows that we did the right thing and we should just ignore
the two that want secrecy. I said that the two individuals were ones
that did not want me to use their names in my meeting blogs. This
would make secrecy consistent with their life.
Jerry said if anyone could have wanted
secrecy, it would have been him, but he was glad that he had been
helped and that everyone knew why. He said that the free foot
examination was a plus as far as he was concerned and these people
should be thankful that we cared enough. Sue said that the person
she had been helping was asking her about the meeting after receiving
the meeting email and wished she could have been caught earlier, but
she had not been paying attention to her feet until she had blood in
her slipper. Sue said she has ordered a mirror so she could see her
feet better and is just glad that she had someone willing to help.
Brenda spoke then and said, with all
the battles we face with diabetes every day, we should be thankful
when others can help us and make life easier. She said at first she
was just happy that there was a group that cared about each other,
but when members are refusing this help, I don't like it and in a
way, I am not sorry to see them leave the group. The call-in is no
guarantee that you will not die, but can help get you to the hospital
if needed. Hypoglycemia is not something to be laughed at, but if
they are arrogant enough to think we are being nosy, then they don't
belong.
That concluded our meeting about the
members leaving.
No comments:
Post a Comment