herveryown

Good Doctor/Bad Nurse

I adore Dr. DoesNotSuck and worship the ground she rests her cute little hippy clogs upon, but her nurse is a total twit.  Remember her?  Fear not, the long months apart have not dulled her razor sharp wit, but only because she never actually had one of those.

Soap Opera Announcer: The psuedonym of Nurse Well Meaning has now been changed to Nurse Gatekeeper, due to her irksome habit of intercepting emails to Dr. DoesNotSuck and then attempting to answer them.  Is it even necessary to mention that she does this extremely poorly?

While trying to get comfortable a few weeks ago, I started wondering about sleeping on my back.  There is this thing about sleeping on your back during pregnancy, and I was having a hard time finding straight answers.  The twin pregnancy books were rather alarmist about it (and everything else) and sometimes the Internet just has too damned much information.  If you Google 'sleeping on your back during pregnancy', you'll come up with almost 2.5 million results, many of them conflicting, most of them vague and very few of them discussing multiple gestation specifically.  At this point, I figured I could do one of two things.  I could either go on IVFC and post a question that, had I read it, would make me think "Jeez, lady, shouldn't you be asking your doctor about this, not the Internet?" or just suck it up and ask my doctor.

I dashed off an email to Dr. DoesNotSuck...and promptly got a response from Nurse Gatekeeper.  "Oh, you're only ten weeks, it's nothing to worry about.  That happens later.  Just listen to your body."

I was not pleased with this answer for several reasons.  First of all, at ten weeks with two, a uterus is the size of fourteen weeks with one.  She hadn't mentioned the multiple issue, so was she giving me advice for a ten or fourteen week gestation?  Obviously, 'later' was not exactly my idea of a solid cutoff date, and furthermore 'listen to your body'?  Was she on glue?

'Listen to your body' is theoretically empowering and as useless platitudes go, it's a nifty one, but it's not exactly the kind of prenatal advice I expect from a doctor's office.  It's certainly not consistant with anything else they've ever told me.  Actually, most of their advice has gone directly against my body's urges.  'Snorfing up iron supplements while avoiding dairy', 'not eating deli meat' and 'putting up with Nurse GateKeeper' are certainly not impulses that my body would come up with on its own.  Come to think of it, if I listened to my body during this pregnancy, I would be consuming nothing but frosty cold glasses of milk, potatoes fried in butter and virtually snowed in with sour cream and salt, and a big glass of wine.  For every meal.

Furthermore, my body and I haven't been on speaking terms since the second FET.  The last I heard from my body was the week before BE's transfer, when it asked "Are you still mad because I didn't tell you GE was dead?"  "Take a wild guess," I said.  "Here, have some more Lupron."  "But I hate Lupron."  "Ha ha, I know."

Since it was useless to ask my body about this, I emailed Nurse Gatekeeper with the polite version of "Yeah, that 'listen to your body' theory is interesting, but I need a REAL answer."  Dr. DoesNotSuck promptly emailed me and said "Twentytwo weeks for singletons, but for you, let's say eighteen," and gave me some tips about getting comfortable.

Fastforward to this week, when I've been dizzy and panting like a dog almost constantly.  I knew I wasn't dehydrated, my blood pressure was normal, and since I eat every two hours, I was pretty sure it wasn't a blood sugar issue.  I found this kind of weird. 

I emailed Dr. DoesNotSuck asking if this sounded normal, if it might be an issue with anemia, or if I should be worried.  I got an email from Nurse Gatekeeper (sigh) saying she'd ordered a CBC.  Well, it was a good start.  I trotted down, donated a small amount of blood to The Cause, and waited to see what was up.

Yesterday, not only was I super duper dizzy, I was starting to have some nasty cramps (the first real cramping episode of this pregnancy), setting off my trusty "AWOOOOGA, AWOOOOGA, FREAK RIGHT THE FUCK OUT, WOMEN AND FETUSES FIRST, SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY, GO TO THE DOCTOR AND DON'T FORGET YOUR TOOTHBRUSH" alarm.  Because I'm laid back like that.

I left work and headed home to collect my free pass for the carpool lane beloved husband, calling Dr. DoesNotSuck's office en route.  I got Nurse GateKeeper (of course), who said "Hmm, come on in.  We'll check your blood pressure."  At least she didn't tell me I was probably having a miscarriage.  Sam was alarmed, but valiantly trying to hide it.  I was alarmed, but lying about it.  If this was a sitcom, it would be a setup for A Hilarious Misunderstanding, but since it's real life, it was just a really tense 45 minute drive to the hospital, followed by a 30 minute wait for Nurse GateKeeper. 

Since I hate Nurse GateKeeper anyway and am really not the most patient person in the world when panicking about all things uterine, I returned to the receptionist's desk at the 31 minute mark and said (politely) "Look, bag this nurse bullshit.  How about the doctor on call?"

I was abruptly whisked away to an exam room, where Nurse GateKeeper magically appeared and started asking all kinds of stupid questions.  No, I should clarify.  They weren't stupid questions per se, but since the answers to all of them (and many more) could be found in my chart, I just had no idea why she was asking them.  My personal favorite was "Oh, you're anemic?  Are you on iron supplements?"  I almost did a spit take.  Really, what's the point of having a medical record thicker than War and Peace if nobody ever reads it, hmm?  Also, I really had to pee, so I abandoned Sam to answer Nurse GateKeeper's questions and went on a bathroom quest.

When I returned to the exam room, the doctor on call showed up.  Dr. Eyelashes was perfectly nice and unintentionally hilarious.  "Well, you're very anemic," he said.  "Your hematocrit is 30--"  "Hey, really?  30 is pretty good, considering.  It used to be 25."  "Really?  Well, you're still very anemic.  How you feel right now is about what we'd expect with that degree of anemia and multiple gestation."  "Oh.  Okay.  Well, if this is the expected level of misery, I'm totally fine with that," I said between deep breaths. "I just wanted to make sure." 

"You seem very...worried," Dr. Eyelashes said hesitantly.  "Is there something specific you're worried about?"  "Just that they're dead," I said breezily.  Dr. Eyelashes did a pelvic, declaring my cervix long and closed, and found Fitz-Hume and Millbarge with the doppler.  "Everything seems fine," he said.  "There's really not a whole lot that can go wrong at this point--" (Sam and I started laughing hysterically) "--but maybe you have a bladder infection.  We'll check."  And then he moved up my next appointment by a few weeks.

Considering that I basically went in complaining about symptoms that turned out to be totally normal pregnancy crap, Dr. Eyelashes was a very good sport.  Sam and I also noticed that he did not seem to be a big fan of Nurse GateKeeper, repeatedly kicked her out of the exam room on errands and said "Hey, nice block" after Sam slammed the door with his foot when she tried to barge in while I was in the stirrups, flippyflaps waving in the breeze.  This boosted Dr. Eyelashes' standing in our book considerably, along with the complete lack of handpatting and therethere-ing.

So, the downside is that apparently I'm a nervous idiot, but the upside is that hey, they're still alive.

That's always nice.

By the way, I was all excited about Reaching!  Twelve!  Weeks! and then I read that the first trimester actually ends at thirteen weeks and got slightly less excited.  On the other hand, twelve weeks is the pregnant-est that I've ever been, so that's still pretty cool.

The Reason I Show Up On Weird Searches

I was the recipient of an unsolicited belly rub today.  I was pretty tired and didn't feel like trying to come up with anything barbed or witty, so I just opened my mouth and decided to see what came out.  As it turned out, it was this:

"You realize that you're just rubbing poop, right?  The baby is actually much lower."

Why I Hate Math

Early onset round ligament pain that makes you double over every time you sneeze plus hayfever multiplied by that whole nasal congestion during pregnancy thing equals MOTHERFUCKER, that really hurt, cubed.

Women with children plus newly pregnant woman equals eightyfivethousand horror stories about pregnancy, birth, and childrearing.

Manic Depression plus pregnancy hormones equals gratuitous weeping and excessive irritability. 

I think Sam might be building a top secret fort in the backyard just to have a good place to hide out for a while.  Hell, I would if I could.

That Glow

Between the anemia and the food poisoning, I haven't looked too great during this pregnancy, but I finally got a glimpse of that legendary pregnancy glow on Thursday.  Of course, Dr. BrightEyes was the one doing all the glowing.  I was merely trying to keep from snickering and/or swearing.

Since I am currently so big that total strangers have started being polite to me, I wore a heavy quilted coat to Dr. BrightEyes' office for my eleven week ultrasound.  In August.  I looked chubby and hot (not that kind of hot), but at least I didn't look like a pregnant woman sitting in an RE's waiting room.

We gave Dr. BrightEyes strict instructions not to get quiet at the beginning of the ultrasound.  I guess we're still a little shell shocked.  Every time there's an awkward silence involving a dildocam, one of us panics and blurts out "ARE THEY ALIVE?"  I've noticed that REs understand this impulse, but OB/GYNs and HMO wandmonkeys find it decidedly peculiar. 

They are alive, with growth and heart rates right on target.  There are two placentas and two amniotic sacs, making this the safest kind of multiples to gestate.  Of course, as I told Sam a while ago, that is a bit like living in the driest neighborhood in New Orleans after Katrina: You're better off, but still kind of screwed.  

Dr. BrightEyes seemed tickled to death throughout the wanding, like a kid showing off a new toy rocket or fancy remote control car in the park.  Millbarge, on the other hand, was apparently super pissed off about the whole ultrasound experience, and started throwing punches and kicks when the wand turned in his direction.  If the monitor screen had a closed captioning function, "MOTHERFUCKER" would have ticked across the bottom in big block letters.  Fitz-Hume was a little more laid back.  I think he was feeling pretty smug about the fact that he had managed to grow a placenta directly over my cervix.  Nice try, kid, but I hear most placentas migrate North for the winter by 20 weeks.

Information was taken down about Dr. DoesNotSuck and my progress on the anemia front.  Handshakes and printouts were exchanged.

I said "Don't take this the wrong way, because it's just been a blast, but I really hope I don't see you again."

Dr. BrightEyes laughed and said "Yeah, yeah, get out of here!"

So, with that, we have officially been released into the wild by Dr. BrightEyes and Company without so much as a tracking collar or an ankle band.

Styrofoam Is Much More Durable, Anyway

"Are they natural?"

If you're pregnant with one, nobody asks.  If you're pregnant with two, everybody asks. 

Something similar seems to happen in all newspaper articles discussing High Order Multiples: There is always a line about whether or not fertility drugs were used.  I suppose the subjects of the articles are supposed to feel proud or ashamed in turn, depending on their circumstances.  I usually wish more details were given, such as "No fertility drugs were used, as these are identical quadruplets and ART doesn't typically cause that, which you'd know if the general population weren't so woefully ignorant in all matters involving reproduction, and incidentally, you can't really find babies under cabbage leaves, either," or "Fertility drugs were used, specifically Clomid and virtually no (alternate: inadequate) medical monitoring from this couple's doctor, Dr. IrresponsibleSchmuck, whose phone number is (206) DIP-SHIT if you'd like to call and give him a piece of your mind, preferably in the middle of the night" or maybe "Fertility drugs were used, but not the same kind as your infertile friend/sister in law/acquaintance is/was/will be using, so please don't bother her with this article, because she's already read it and heard about it from everybody else in the known universe."

Hmm?  Touchy?  Me?  Why, no.

This issue came up on IVFConnections, and a few women responded saying that they weren't ashamed of doing IVF and told everybody, anyway, so it didn't bother them.

Ah, no.  I'm not shy or embarrassed about doing IVF.  I'm certainly not ashamed.  When people ask to see my ultrasound pictures, I also show them Fitz-Hume and Millbarge's five day blast pictures.  I frequently take (more than a small amount of) delight in causing casual acquaintances to flinch and squirm by saying "...and THEN they stick a needle THIS LONG up your junk and punch, like, twenty freaking holes in your vagina."

And yet, "Are they natural?" bothers me.  Let me count the ways:

1. "Are they seriously asking whether or not we had sex?  If we hadn't used ART, would they ask what position we were in?"  This came from Sam, who also gets quite bristly about the whole business.
2. When a nurse in my OB/GYN's office asks, I assume that she has a reason.  On the other hand, I also assume that she has access to my medical records, which say, quite clearly, that YES, WE DID IVF, and has she considered taking one of those Evelyn Wood speed reading courses?  It would be helpful, because then she could also skip the questions about whether or not this is my first pregnancy and, upon hearing that it is my fourth, how many children I have.  These questions are still rather painful, and since I've already answered them on multiple forms, I'm just not fond of hashing it out again (and again).  As contrast, when a random nurse inserting an IV asks the same question, I can (correctly) assume that she's just curious and/or nosy, and I wish she'd button it.
3. Every time somebody asks, I find myself wondering if I'm about to bear the brunt of some dipshit's judgmental baggage about ART, and/or be the subject of gossip later.  The look on my face usually discourages the former, but nothing short of immediate nuclear war could discourage the latter.
4. It doesn't bother me nearly as much to hear people referring to 'natural conception' as it does to hear people refer to 'natural twins', because it begs the question: If twins aren't natural, what are they?  And let's not forget that 'conception' refers to a process, but 'twins' refers to people, or what may turn into people eventually, and it is rude to imply that people are 'unnatural.' 
5. Speaking of rude, simply asking the question is impolite in the case of total strangers, under the theory of "Hi, if I knew you that well, you'd already know the answer to that question, wouldn't you?" 

I assume that if both Fitz-Hume and Millbarge make it, this question will not magically cease to be asked at birth.  I also assume that people continue to ask the 'natural' question of the parents of multiples far beyond the point where the children in question are able to understand the question, and this is the sticking point.  I do not feel any obligation to tolerate strangers asking rude questions about my children.  Come to think of it, family and friends won't exactly score a free pass on this issue, either.

Whether or not people possess natural curiosity about the circumstances surrounding multiple gestation, I do not feel that curiosity can or should excuse poor manners.  In this society, for example, it is considered impolite to ask whether or not somebody's breasts are real, how they got that scar on their cheek, if that unfortunate mess on someone's head is a toupee, and whether or not the condom broke, even though the answers to those questions may prove to be positively fascinating.

So here's the deal.  I would really like it if people on the verge of asking me if my pregnancy is 'natural' would stop, ask themselves the following questions, and then proceed appropriately:

• How close are we?  If we've already discussed menstruation or our respective sex lives, ask away.  If we're relative strangers, let's keep it that way.
• Why are you asking?  Idle curiosity, or are you actually bringing something to the table?
• Will your response to my pregnancy be different depending on my answer?  If your response in either case will be 'congratulations,' why ask?
• Have you considered other topics of conversation, such as the weather?  An amusing anecdote?  The construction on I-5?  My fetching earrings?  Come on, now, there must be something on your mind other than what occurred in or around my vagina immediately prior to conception.
• Have you considered the insulting nature of the question itself?  Really?
• In that case, are you a huge jerkwad?

I do have a plan for the next person hundred or so people who ask me this question, and it goes a little something like this:

Potential Jerkwad: "So, I hear you're having twins."
Akeeyu: "Well, we certainly hope to."
PJ: "So, are they, y'know, natural?"
Akeeyu: "What do you mean?"
PJ: "You know, did it just happen, or did you take fertility drugs?"
Akeeyu: "Oh, I see.  You meant to ask if the conception was spontaneous or assisted?"
PJ: "What?  Um...yeah."
Akeeyu: "Ohhh.  For a minute there, I thought you were asking if my children were natural, which is kind of rude, don't you think?  Of course they're natural.  Anyway, in answer to your question, the conception was definitely assisted; we did IVF."

For the record, I'm also quite fond of the Supernatural answer, and I love this guy's take on the 'natural twins' question, as well, but for now, I'm going to practice my feigned confusion and polite (but firm) correction.  I'm sure Miss Manners would approve.

Show And Don't Tell

I think I may have violated Rule Two, but I'm not entirely sure.

Here's the thing: I'm showing.  I am at that point where people who know me think I look pregnant and people who don't know me might think I'm pregnant, or have either reeeeally let myself go or am making Severely Unfortunate Fashion Choices.  In any event, my abdomen now precedes my breasts into a room, and my breasts are not exactly the shrinking violet types.

In a futile stab at subtlety, I've appropriated a lot of Sam's nicer shirts.  This summer's peculiar weather has allowed me to hide under thick, shapeless sweaters, but it's only getting me so far.  I've had to abandon most of my wardrobe and start scouring Seattle's finer thrift stores for fifty cent maternity shirts.

I don't care about gaining weight.  I don't care about looking awkward or podgy.  It does, however, bother me to look so very pregnant when I feel like such a fraud.  Ten weeks and change is nothing.  I have passed no significant milestones, save for the gestational dates of my previous miscarriages.  I am not out of any kind of woods.  I'm not even out of the first trimester, for God's sake.  I hate looking like this when things are still so uncertain.

I feel like false advertising.  I don't feel ready to talk about this with random strangers, let alone my inlaws. 

I feel like a walking jinx.  I look down and think "Oh, that's just the chocolate chocolate chip muffins I ate.  That's just the cut of the shirt.  That's just bad posture," but it's not any of those things.  It's Fitz-Hume and Millbarge.  Depending on who you ask, my uterus is measuring between four and six weeks ahead of schedule.  Dr. DoesNotSuck is satisfied with my weight and size, so there's nothing medically wrong with me, I'm just emo.

This isn't about feeling fat.  I don't.  This is about feeling like a lie.  I look so much more pregnant than I actually am, and I feel uncomfortable with this.  My previous pregnancies and miscarriages were very private things, physically.  This feels extremely conspicuous, and much too public.  As an example of how conspicuous I have become, I had my first unsolicited belly rub today.  Thank God it was someone I like and I didn't have to break any fingers, because I'm a little tired for that.

I'm also tired (so very very tired) of answering the questions.  "Is this your first pregnancy?"  No, it's my fourth, but this is the furthest I've ever gotten.  "Are you excited?"  Not really.  We're waiting to get excited until later.  "Do you want a boy or a girl?"  We're hoping for live babies.  "But really, which would you rather have?"  We'd rather have healthy live babies.  "Are they natural?" 

Okay, this one actually irritates me so much, I think I'll save it for later.

Perks

You know what they say about hair growth during pregnancy?  It's totally true.  My twenty jillion random chin hairs have never been this lush and silky.

I was peculiarly sick in the spring and lost a metric assload of weight (and my ass) unexpectedly.  Because of this, I had to buy a completely new (tiny) wardrobe.  The handy thing about this is that I didn't throw anything out, meaning that while Fitz-Hume and Millbarge are busy building the front porch addition onto my gut (yes, already), I am now just growing right back into my older, bigger clothes.  This appeals tremendously to my cheap side, as it's like thrift store shopping in my own closet.

I'd been having a hard time keeping up with the housework, what with the constant exhaustion and all those trips to the can (and the hospital) a while back, and then something fantastic occurred: Tiny Bladder Insomnia.  Behind on the housework?  Worn down to a fucking nubbin?  Feel like there just aren't enough hours in the day?  Try Tiny Bladder Insomnia!  With TBI, you'll be up every three hours around the clock anyway, and what the fuck, why not throw some clothes in the wash or do a little mending?  Come on, you're already up!

Stickin' It To The Plan

Hey, guess what?  As tempting as Dr. LovelySurprise's plan sounded, what with the big needles and waiver forms and such, it turns out that I do not have to do it.

By boosting my daily iron intake to a staggering 1000% of my RDA*, I have managed to force my body into some semblance of normalcy, and it has begrudgingly agreed to start coughing up some red blood cells.  I'm sure it's just humoring me, or perhaps this is some sort of truce: "Okay, here's the deal, boys: If the bones agree to start generating blood, she said she'll eventually stop turning her stomach into a virtual scrap yard of iron tablets."

For those of you following along on the home game, here are the hard numbers:

Hematocrit: 25 to 28         (should be at least 36)
Hemoglobin: 8.8 to 9.9      (should be at least 10)
Iron: 15 to 121                  (should be between 50 and 150)
TSH: 3.3 to .35                 (should be between .3 and 3.0)

Make no mistake about it, the first two values are still abnormal, but at least they're going in the right direction.

I feel quite relieved.  Whatever else caused the anemia, at least we now know that my body is capable of absorbing iron from oral supplements and creating new red blood cells.  Of course, it will only actually perform these tricks if I take massive amounts of iron on an empty stomach with a great big chalky vitamin C chaser three times a day, but that's still progress, and I'll take it.

I recently told Sam that when my hematocrit was 25, I constantly worried about three things:

1. Total or partial pregnancy loss
2. Health risks to Fitz-Hume and Millbarge
3. Personal risk (ie, gory bathroom floor related death) in the event of another miscarriage

Sam said "Oh.  I was worried about those things too, but in the opposite order, except for number two, which I didn't even know was a possibility."  This is clearly an advantage of not having to pee every three hours around the clock: Sam has fewer waking hours in which to obsess about the worst possible scenario.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still fifteen different kinds of fretful about Fitz-Hume and Millbarge, but at least it's down to the baseline of a typical frequent miscarrier, which is "Hmm, I think we'll have sandwiches for dinner.  Do you suppose we have any beef and barley soup left?  Hey, I wonder if they're dead?" as opposed to "OH MY GOD, I BET THEY'RE DEAD AND IT'S ALL MY FAULT BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH BLOOD!  WHERE IS MY BLOOD?  WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED, HERE?  CRAP!  THEY'RE DEAD FOR SURE, AND THE NEXT MISCARRIAGE WILL PROBABLY KILL ME.  I WONDER WHERE MY WILL IS?"

So, y'know, that's an improvement.

*Yeah, no shit.  1000% of the Recommended Daily Allowance**.  This is on the advice of three different doctors, including Dr. BrightEyes.  All of them have assured me that my body will only absorb some miniscule amount of iron from supplements, therefore I should feel free to suck the damned things down like M&Ms or potato chips.  Mmmm, Floradix...bet you can't eat just one!
**Do not try this at home.  Iron poisoning is not your friend.

Dr. LovelySurprise

Dear Dr. LovelySurprise,

Thank you for not being a tool.  With the caliber of doctors I've seen lately, you were quite a breath of fresh air, and cute as a bug, besides.  I wish I could have bronzed the look on your face when you pulled my labs up on your computer and murmured "A hematocrit of twentyfive is NOT NORMAL."

Thank you for not asking if the conception was 'natural,' instead opting to ask if the multiples were 'spontaneous.'  In that we hadn't really decided how many to put back until the morning of the transfer, I guess it was kind of spontaneous, but not in the way you meant, so I said no.

Thank you for agreeing that my crit and iron levels are alarming.  Thank you for being alarmed.

Thank you for agreeing to rerun my TSH and crit and iron.  I know it's only been a week since my last CBC and iron panel, but thank you for listening to me when I pointed out that my crit dropped five points in three weeks before.  Thank you for throwing a retic count in for good measure.  At least now we know that I am, in fact, currently capable of generating new red blood cells.  With so little iron present, I have no idea what my body is making these cells out of (I suspect papier mache and very tiny chicken wire is involved), but I suppose we can at least award it an E for Effort.

Thank you for not doing a pelvic.  I realize that pelvics are the french fries of the OB/GYN world, and after IVF and OHSS, it's not like my Vicuna has any lingering shreds of dignity, but I'm still not a fan of having my cervix poked by a stranger, and I do appreciate keeping my pants on whenever possible.

Thank you for making a plan (involving needles and iron) in case my crit and/or iron levels drop any further.  It's not that I think your plan sounds like a ton of fun, but I like that you have a plan.

Thank you for knowing what OHSS is, and not acting weird when I mentioned that I am still under an RE's care.

Thank you for not making me beg or argue or yell in order to get good medical care.

Thank you for making me feel like I'm in good hands.

Sincerely,
Akeeyu

A Menace To Public Health

Did you know that if you get horrible flaming craps as a result of some unpronounceable bacteria, the hospital will turn your name in to the department of Public Health?  Yeah.  They totally will.

After that, you get a phone call from a perfectly lovely lady who will mildly lecture you on proper chicken preparation despite your repeated assurances that you are so meticulously careful while handling dead poultry that you resemble some insane cross between Monk and Howard Hughes every time you make a roast. 

The best part of that phone call would probably be the following:

Perfectly Lovely Lady: "And did you drink from any streams recently?"
Akeeyu: "No."
PLL: "Go swimming in a public pool?"
Akeeyu: "Nope."
PLL: "Swim in any public bodies of water?"
Akeeyu: "N...hmm.  Well, I did kind of go wading at the beach."
PLL: "What beach?"
Akeeyu: "Well...it's in Seattle.  It just happens to be...um...right next to a sewage treatment plant."
PLL: "No kidding."
Akeeyu: "Yeeeah."
PLL: "Huh.  It probably wasn't that."
Akeeyu: "Alrighty, then."

I'm actually feeling quite a bit better.  The antibiotics cleared up all residual intestinal ickiness, and I have regained the ability to have visibly detectable veins.  I suppose that doesn't sound so impressive, but considering that it previously took six people in two different hospitals to obtain two measly little blood samples, it seems like quite an accomplishment to me.

The appointment with the Mystery OB/GYN is tomorrow.  My goals are to have them run a repeat TSH and CBC and formulate a definitive plan on how to deal with The Mystery Of The Ironless Akeeyu.  We might have to bring Nancy Drew and her chubby friend in to solve this one.

I predict that this is either going to go surprisingly well or I'm going to have to start pitching fits of hitherto unknown proportions.