I saw my GP yesterday, mainly to talk about how I was handling the diabetes and partly to talk about another long-term condition (which was, ironically, what I was seeing her about when she tested my blood glucose and sent me to hospital).
I’m pleased to report that everything is going well, but that’s not what this post is about.
According to both my Whoop and my Apple Watch, my resting hear rate has been falling. This is probably a mixture of generally improved health and increased physical fitness, but sometimes it can be a sign of heart issues if it gets too low. I was pretty confident it was getting lower for good reasons, but I wanted to be sure.
My GP explained the bad reasons why my heart rate could be low. She went through my recent notes to see if there was any evidence of that, and then she listened to my heart with a stethoscope. She told me there was no evidence of any heart issues, and concluded that the lower resting heart rate was all good.
Think about the knowledge that my GP was using yesterday. I came in and asked her questions about type 2 diabetes, some of which were pretty nerdy, and she was able to answer them. We talked about my other health issue, and then I casually mentioned my resting heart rate, and she listened to my heart and was able to tell that everything was OK. And on top of that, she took my pulse, blood oxygen, and blood pressure.
That is an enormous range of things to know about. It would be impressive if she was my personal physician and she had had half a day to prepare for the appointment, but she has many, many other patients, and had at best a few minutes to prepare for me walking in her door, and even then she will have had no real idea what I was going to bring up.
Every patient who walked through her door yesterday could have been just as complicated as me. Every patient was someone who potentially needed detailed examination and complex understanding.
GPs are bloody amazing, and we don’t give them enough credit.
Thank you to every GP who has looked after me (and Michael) over the years. We really appreciate it.