How You Doin'?: Standing Dates with Medical Professionals

Today, I was reminded that I have an autoimmune disease (if not more than one, sneaky little buggers) because Harold Ramis from 'Ghostbusters' died from autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis. :( This grieves me.

Onto an update.

Last Appointment with the Curly Haired Doc:

I went in after our last miscarriage to a) get a hysterosalpingogram and b) talk about my options going forward. The Flamingagram (as my good friend calls it) didn't show a damn thing. My uterus is, the doctors exclaimed during the appointment, "beautiful" and "perfect"! Even though that fluffs my ego a little bit, it doesn't do a whole lot for me. "Yes! I have the most beautiful, perfect uterus! Everyone with an ugly uterus can suck it. Now if only it would hold a baby..."

As far as other options, there's not much to offer. Curly Haired Doc was so sweet:

"Well. The thing with recurrent miscarriage is that there's often not a quantifiable reason, no reason we can find. You can still do the genetic testing and we can look at your Day 3 blood tests, but...? Otherwise the best we can do, I think, is maybe try low-dose aspirin and progesterone. What it comes down to is you and how many more times you want to try."

"Okay."

She looked at me helplessly, empathetically. "I mean...," she shrugged, "we could try Clomid or..."

"But aren't those for people who have trouble getting pregnant?"

"I know. You really don't need those drugs." 

She looked so sad that she couldn't help me. It was endearing. I don't think she would have given me unnecessary pharmaceuticals, she just wanted something, anything, to offer me.

After this appointment, I had this brilliant idea to find a doctor closer to home. Everything I'd been reading implied that neither aspirin nor progesterone were miracle 'cures' for miscarriage, so maybe no interventions was a viable option. I thought, "Oh! It'll be so easy to find a semi-crunchy lady doc who has a good sense of humor and is comfortable NOT giving me drugs!"

I have learned nothing. Though still blessed with an idealistic and optimistic soul, I was bound to suffer disappointment.

New Appointment with a Newbie (To Me) Doc:

I *thought* I'd found a doctor that might be a good fit for me. How did I make this decision, you ask?  A combination of Internet research and racial profiling. We used to have an excellent doctor who was from India--very holistic and kind. I chose a practice with another Indian doctor assuming (yep, I know what they say) that she might share the same ideologies and practices.

The whole thing started off on the wrong foot. I ended up in the waiting room, with a three-year-old, for 45 minutes. This is the conversation that followed:

Me: "Hey, I might have to reschedule. I need to be somewhere and it's already been 45 minutes. So..." 

Secretary: "Okay, let me just check here. She has this day open and this day. She should be done soon though if you want to wait? Do you have to be somewhere?*"

"Um...yeah, well, it just might work better another time?"

"Are you sure?" 

"Yeah, let's reschedule."

At this point, the doctor has emerged from her office with her previous patient. She's listening in. She doesn't want to lose me! So she interjects: "I'm just about done here and then I can see you..." She paused. "You know you were supposed to set aside an hour to an hour-and-a-half for this appointment."

Now I'm on the defensive. "Yes, but an hour-and-a-half that starts at 10 is different than the one that starts at 11. So." I feel like I made a good point, yes?

Shouting Medical Professional by imagerymajestic; freedigitalphotos.net

They convinced me to go to my appointment, but it was already a loss. The office didn't have my records (though my previous office swore they'd already been sent), my daughter was at her wit's end**, and this doc and I were not on the same page. She was nice enough, but when I mentioned that my thyroid had been mistreated, she looked disbelieving. When I told her I was willing to deliver a breech baby, she said that doctors just didn't do that anymore (and implied that they shouldn't).

The last straw was when she kept pushing for a physical exam of some sort. I felt pestered and finally conceded. After all, what's one more person looking up in my hoo-ha?! Anyway. this was no ordinary pelvic exam. It ended with this.

White Medical Glove by John Kasawa; freedigitalphotos.net

!!!

No, just no! I've been told it's normal, sometimes, to include this step in a physical examination, but I'm not a fan. Had I been forewarned, I would have left earlier.

Guess I'll be sticking with my Curly Haired Doc, hour-long drive and all. :) 

*Where I had to be was friggin' story time. I kept promising my daughter we would make it and this would be the second day in a row that we didn't. I have a feeling that telling the secretary I wanted to make it to story time would fail to elicit any understanding.

**To be fair, the nurse obligingly babysat my daughter. That was awesome.