The diabetic food update!

Friends, I posted my diabetes rant too soon! It apparently took an army of doctors and nurses petitioning on my behalf (I've had several take credit already - "It must have been my phone call that did the trick!" and I thank them all profusely), but I believe my diet has been adjusted to fall in line with what the dietitian initially told me I would be eating.

Last night at dinner I noticed that my label had changed - instead of reading Diabetic/Heart Healthy, my meal ticket now reads Gestational Diabetes with a specific daily calorie count. And I took the lid off of my tray to find...(drum roll...) a turkey burger on a wheat bun with a side of steamed broccoli and a salad. No french fries! No pasta! No bag of potato chips! (I actually did have a bag of potato chips with my lunch yesterday, just for the record.) My breakfast this morning was also acceptable. Scrambled eggs and a single slice of whole wheat toast. Not a muffin or a pancake in sight.

 I am relieved to know that it apparently IS possible to get food that's (relatively) healthy for me, if not exactly delicious. If my meals continue to be appropriate for my diabetes, I'm hopeful that I will be able to keep my sugars under control without having to stay on the insulin.

 Thanks for all the outrage on my behalf. I was pretty discouraged by the hospital's seeming lack of concern for their patients' health, but hopefully things are straightened out (at least for me, if not for all the other poor diabetic/hearth healthy-eating patients) and it was just a matter of taking a week to get my diet correctly ordered. That's not really a good thing, but all's well that ends well? As long as I don't get lasagna for lunch, I guess.

UPDATE: I did get lasagna for lunch. The irony is killing me. However, I also received a visit from the dietitian who sat with me for a while and discussed my concerns, went over the previous meals I'd been getting, and gave me a schedule of the full menu rotation for the week. I now have access to all my meals in advance - and some of them are pretty atrocious nutritionally (I'm looking at you, Tuesday dinner, with your fried chicken, mac & cheese, dinner roll, and chocolate pudding). The good thing is I also have a list of alternatives I can request instead if I call ahead.

So for example, if I'd known in advance that today's lunch would be vegetable lasagna, a white dinner roll, asparagus, and mandarin orange slices, and that the only protein source in the whole meal would be the cheese in the lasagna, I could have called down and ordered grilled chicken, a cheeseburger, or chicken salad instead. And in future I can substitute say, green beans for the mac and cheese or whatever. So I at least have some measure of control over what I'm eating, even if the choices they make for me by default are not always the best. I'll take it.