My Life As a T1D

Chapter 2: List of Doctors

If anybody has a condition or disease you would know that you always have to change doctors. The doctor that you have right now you might think is the best doctor ever, but then a few months or years later you will not like them and talk about all the things they did wrong. This is exactly what happened to me.

In the 6 years that I've had type 1 diabetes, I have had 4 different doctors: Dr. Pasquel, Dr. Mauricio Pérez de la Puente, Dr. Veronica Rosado (all three in Ecuador) and Dr. Penelope Pauley (in USA); the last two are my current doctors.

I will tell you about each doctor one by one. Dr. Pasquel was the doctor that would visit me everyday during the time I was in the hospital. He's the one who basically didn't let me sleep when I was tired, if you remember reading about that earlier. He was a good doctor, or so we thought when we first met him. He was pretty famous as well so we knew that he is one of the best. His strategy was "Que Amaia comá lo que ella quiera y que solo se ponga insulina cuando necesite". (He said these same words to my mother). In English this means "I want Amaia to eat anything she wants and put insulin when she needs it". If you are diabetic you know that this theory is incorrect, of course my family didn't know that then, we were very new to all this diabetes junk.

My next doctor was Dr. Mauricio Pérez de la Puente. Dr. Pérez wasn't a good doctor for several reasons. He dealt with Type 2 patients more so than Type 1. He spoke of counting carbs and portions which is something that most diabetics know how or lean about. Although he was very chubby, or as we say here "gordito," it was hard to believe a doctor who talked about eating healthy when he didn't follow his own words. I didn't mind him much, but my mother had a different take on him. Dr. Pérez never talked to me. He mostly had a conversation with my mother, which makes sense because I am, after all minor. But, still I understand a lot more than most people think about my condition considering the fact that around ten years old at that time. My A1C's (which is my BG average over 3-4 months) came down a bit but it was still pretty high. My doctor was very annoyed about this. He would start yelling at my mom and saying "Pero usted no entiende? Simplemente tienes que sumar correctamente. No sabe como sumar?!?" Which means: "Don't you understand? You simply have to add correctly.........you don't know how to add?!?" As you might have guessed my mom didn't like this so they started looking for another physician.

That is how my next doctor came to the picture, Dra. Veronica Rosado. My grandma has hyperthyroidism and Dra. Veronica Rosado is her endocrinologist. When we visited her, we noticed a drastic change in her management skills. She was able to lower my A1C although I can't give her all the credit for doing that. But I'll talk about that later. Dra. Rosado was so far the best doctor we have found in Ecuador. One thing that I really liked about her, is that she asks me lots of questions instead of my parents....well.....she also asks them questions. We've had Dra. Rosado for a little over a year now. It is something really good.

I also have a doctor in the U.S which is really exciting! It the U.S many doctors are very knowledgeable about Type 1 and provide proper guidance for patients. I will be talking about that later in this book. So I suggest you stick with me a little further. 

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Sorry it took me so long to update. I have been busy. Also sorry if this chapter is really boring.