Wednesday, May 14, 2008

An Informed Patient

We met with our new RE in March. The only reason we were switching was to get into a study, my old RE's office was not participating.

Mr. S and I were quite happy to find the new RE was both respectful and willing to listen. One our way in, I said to Mr. S, "if one more medical professional draws me a diagram showing how a sperm needs to penetrate an egg, and why that isn't happening for us I will smack them."

She looked over our files(painstakingly collected) and said, "Well, it seems like you've been through all the tests and you know what you need to do. Questions?"
I proceeded to ask her some specific questions and she replied and then asked, "Ms. S what do you do?"
I told her I teach college and she said "Oh, that's why you're so informed."
Me: "This is my body and I want to know what's happening."
She told us that most people were fine with just going along with things. She seemed happy to hear we know stuff.

Similar exchanges have happened with a couple of nurses we've since seen. It seems odd to me that they are so surprised I know things, ask questions.

Flash forward to today. I was wondering why my lupron was stopped, and checked out some fertility sites and saw that most people stay on lupron when they start stims.
Hmmmm.
Finally, I try calling my study nurse. She is out for 4 days. My regular nurse has been put on pregnancy bedrest(yes, that's right) and I have no one-specific new nurse. I call a couple of numbers, voicemail city, land of "we'll get back to you in 24 hrs) I finally get someone, ask her about it, she says, "hmmm, hold on." A few clicks back and then I wait 15 minutes. She comes back and says, "I don't know why you were told to quit lupron, you need to keep doing it, at 5 units now."
I asked, "Why was I told to stop?"
She didn't know. She said to go ahead and do it(it was 5pm, I usually do it at 8am) and assured me it wouldn't mess up my cycle.
I hung up. And then got VERY ANGRY.

If I hadn't questioned my 'orders' I would've been off lupron until Friday(when I go in for a check) at which point it is quite possible my cycle would've been ruined.

I asked Mr. S to call back and basically force them to give me a new contact nurse. If one person is responsible for me, I am hoping this type of b&^#*% won't keep happening. Of course they were all gone, so he'll do it in the morning.

2 comments:

  1. I totally understand what you mean! I have been in twice for bloodwork to check my estrogen levels. Each time when they call me back, the nurse just says that everything looks good. I always have to ask for the specific numbers. Thankfully the nurse has told me without an attitude but I don't understand how someone doesn't ask for specfics. IVF is too damn huge not to know every little detail inside and out. I am glad that you found out the mistake with the lupron. I am also on 5 units with the stims.

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  2. I asked the same thing(estrogen). Sometimes I wish I were more willing to just go with it(maybe I'd be more relaxed) but yesterday made me glad I question.

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