herveryown

Lies, Damn Lies, And What Nurse Gatekeeper Said

Oh, that woman.

Somehow, her endless bullshit has tipped past annoying and gone straight into entertaining.

While attempting to reach Dr. DoesNotSuck about the anemia and related complications, I ran afoul of Nurse Gatekeeper, instead.  Our email volleys became increasingly ridiculous as the week wore on.  Let me nutshell it for you.

Akeeyu: Still breathless and exhausted, unable to walk any distance, heart pounding, concerned about long term success of this pregnancy due to complications, bla bla bla, end of rope, please advise.

Nurse Gatekeeper: Are you taking iron supplements?

Akeeyu: Why yes, and let me outline my exciting regimen of Massive Iron Overdose in great detail.

Nurse Gatekeeper: You're doing it wrong.

Akeeyu: See, that's interesting, because your email gives me Iron Supplement Blackout Bingo, in that I have now been told (by Evil Insurance Company's doctors, nurses and midwives) to take iron with or without this, that, and the other.  I have jumped through every hoop, tried every combination of foods, supplements, and holding my mouth like this, and I'm still anemic.

Nurse Gatekeeper: You're still doing it wrong.  Try leafy green vegetables.

Akeeyu: Leafy green...what?  Do you mean like spinach or broccoli?  I know that both of those have iron, but they also contain calcium, which blocks iron absorption, so I haven't been relying on them as iron sources.

Nurse Gatekeeper: Does not compute!  Iron!  Spinach!  You should see a GP!

Akeeyu: I already asked my GP about this issue.  She referred me back to Dr. DoesNotSuck. Is there some other doctor I should be seeing?

Some Other Random Nurse, apparently stepping in for Nurse Gatekeeper, whose circuits I am thrilled to have overloaded: No, there is no other doctor you should be seeing.  Iron supplements should fix the anemia right up.  Please contact us if you have any further problems with exhaustion or dizziness.

Yes, because y'all have done such a goddamned bang up job addressing THIS problem.  Good God.  Can you imagine being an LPN and actually telling a pregnant woman that a GP and an OB/GYN are the last and final words on all things pregnancy related?  With a straight face, I mean.

I remember telling Sam that I would do anything necessary to secure proper care for Fitz-Hume and Millbarge.  I would do whatever it took, up to and including walking through fire.  When I said this, I wasn't expecting the outright stupidity of trying to wring an answer out of Nurse GateKeeper and her ilk.  Given a choice, I'd pick the fire.

The upside is that I have managed to secure a referral for a Perinatologist.  Getting an appointment before the earth crashes into the sun, well, that's the next step, but luckily Dr. BrightEyes has offered his assistance in the matter.  The downside, of course, is that the anemia has progressed (or failed to progress, I suppose) well past the point of absurdity.  From what I understand, it is not normal for a woman who is four months pregnant (even with two) to be unable to walk through a grocery store unaided.  It is not normal to be breathless while driving.  It is not normal for my heart to beat so rapidly that it keeps me up at night.

I feel an odd mixture of gratitude and concern for my heart.   It's desperately pinballing an inadequate (and dwindling) supply of hemoglobin around my body in order to keep me, Fitz-Hume and Millbarge sufficiently oxygenated.  I am impressed at the lengths my heart is currently going to, but sometimes I worry about how long it can keep working at this pace.

I worry about the possibility of a previa-related bleed, given my already ridiculous lack of blood.  I worry about surviving birth, either natural or medically assisted, with no stamina and no reserves.  I worry that my body will decide to offload Fitz-Hume and/or Millbarge in some misguided attempt to prioritize resources.  I worry that the only plan Evil Insurance Company, Inc. has put forth so far seems to consist of "Well, when you're on death's door, then we'll probably do...I don't know, something."

Mostly I worry because my medical Spidey Sense only goes off when something is wrong, and damned if the thing doesn't curently sound like a Hurricane Siren.

Insured by The Fifties

It came as no surprise to me to hear that my car had been totalled. 

It did come as a bit of a surprise to hear my insurance adjustor's message on the machine last week.  "Hi, I'm trying to reach Mr. Sam Buttmansion.  This is Pat Ronizing returning your call about totalling out your vehicle, the aged zippy car?  Please call me back at bla bla bla..."  I was a little confused.  "Sam, why did he call you, and why at home?  I called him yesterday and gave him my name and cell phone number."  "Well, it's probably because the insurance is in my name."  "Okay, sure, but the car is in my name."  "I know.  Weird."

The next day, I discovered that Mr. Ronizing had gotten it half right.  Now he'd left a message on my cell phone asking for Samuel Buttmansion.  This was not going anywhere good.  I took my turn in phone tag by leaving him a reasonably pleasant and somewhat cheerful sounding voicemail reminding him that my name is Akeeyu Herveryown, that my number is bla, that the car in question is my sole property and that if he needs anything signed over or authorized, he should probably deal with me, Akeeyu Herveryown, directly, since the car in question does not in fact belong to my husband, Sam Buttmansion, but rather to me, Akeeyu Herveryown, as it says on the paperwork (approximately twenty pages) that I had faxed to his company previously.  I have the title in my purse, read and waiting to be signed over, so please call me (Akeeyu Herveryown) and have a nice day.

The day after that, I received a rather crabby sounding voicemail: "Well, if it is your car, I guess we can deal with you directly.  Please call me at bla."  He left off "even though you do appear to be a woman," although it seemed pretty thoroughly implied.  What pissed me off was the "if."  If.  My goodness, wasn't he feeling generous?  If it was my car, as it said on the title, registration, police report, insurance paperwork, and collision report, then he guessed they could deal with me. 

Jesus motherfucking Christ on a motherfucking pogostick. 

At this point, I was done with Mr. Pat Ronizing.  I skipped him, called his supervisor and asked to be transferred to a new adjustor.  I was very specific in my reasons for doing so.  Within thirtysix business hours, I'd been called by management, assigned a new adjustor and received a preliminary offer on the car. 

When my mother got married in 1970, the department stores and credit card companies made her sign all of her cards over to my father.  I used to think of this story as archaic and quaint: Annoying as all hell at the time, but amusing in retrospect.  Now I think of it as the story filed adjacent to the one about Mr. Pat Ronizing trying to obtain the title of my car from my husband. 

I'm starting to wonder if everyone has a story along these lines.

What's yours?

Whatever Gets Your Name In The Paper, Sweetheart

Another day, another ignorant person spouting off about ART.  I know, I know, it's Salon and you have to watch an ad and all, but go ahead.  I'll wait.  If you want to get really pissed off, read the letters to the editor, too.  Just trust me, you're going to love this woman.

Really, who better to pass judgement on you, me, and the infertile world at large than an economist flogging a new book? 

Debora Spar writes: "Eggs are being sold; sperm is being sold; wombs and genes and orphans are being sold; and many individuals are profiting handsomely in the process."

Orphans.  Yes, she went there.

She seemed to be trying very hard to say that IVF and abortion are essentially the same thing.  I don't think she was paying very close attention in Health Class, do you?

She implies that IVF is being used to make "designer babies" and then backs down and admits that well, okay, actually people are using PGD to try to have live, healthy babies, not ones with 'Gucci' and 'Prada' stamped across their damned foreheads, but asks where it will all end?  There are issues, here, people!

Yes, there are, and she just doesn't understand them.  She's an economist, for God's sake.  You'd think that she'd have a bigger problem with the cost/benefit analysis of treating people with chronic or terminal illnesses, but no, she wrote about IVF because people get a little twitchy when you start talking about taking away Grandma's chemotherapy, and also because IVF is apparently the new hot button issue.

You don't have to read more than a page of the article to realize that

• she doesn't have a terribly clear grasp of the basic concepts of IVF
• she has a political agenda
• she's trying to stir shit up to sell a book.

You also don't have to read more than a few of the letters to the editor to realize that people are more than willing to get all het up and judgemental about infertility, as long as they don't have to experience it themselves.  God forbid.  Incidentally, like all fertiles, they're more than happy to tell you that if they were infertile, they would just adopt.  And they would totally have done it, too, except that they already had fourteen children, so they're all full up.

But either way, they would never resort to that freaky voodoo witchcrafty fertility shit.  Uh uh.  No way.  Not them. 

Clearly, this falls under the addendum to Akeeyu's Law, which states that basically whatever medical assistance your child needs is called a miracle, whatever medical assistance you need is a vital necessity, and whatever medical assistance you don't need is just Playing God/Messing With Nature/Going Too Far.

What I really enjoyed was the letters in which people declared that infertile people are, by nature of being unable to reproduce without assistance, genetically and physically inferior and should therefore be culled from the human race.  We should also all be channeling Mother Theresa and Making The World A Better Place (for everyone else's children) with all that evil money that we're throwing away on ART.

To that, I simply must say "Oh, blow me."

What? Were you expecting something more mature?

But I'm Always Willing to Make an Exception

Okay, despite some pretty convincing evidence to the contrary, I do not actually hate men.

I do kind of hate this guy, though, who I found via this blog. 

"I think the male power structure demands that men be more fully clothed than women, so when we have to take our clothes off and interact bodily with someone else in a clinical setting, it is more embarrassing for men than it is for women."

So, let me get this straight.  His theory is that it's less traumatizing for women to go to the doctor than it is for men, because women are used to being disempowered and violated? 

That because we wear strapless evening dresses, that it's not embarrassing to have a total stranger stick their hand up your vagina within five minutes of meeting you?  How about having a stranger put their hand up your vagina within five minutes of meeting you while your husband is standing next to you?  I gotta tell you, that's an awkward experience that I don't think either of us have really gotten used to.

He also goes on to complain about commercials for popular products that I am not going to list for fear of showing up on even weirder searches (although this one is still hard to beat).  My, it must be so emasculating to have to watch vague commercials about pills to cure the sexual problems of men.  I would feel his pain, really, I would, but there are currently no non-snakeoil pills available to cure the sexual problems of women.  Imagine that.

The best part, of course, is when he talks about vasectomy.  Not that he's had one.  Of course he hasn't, because when asked by the interviewer if "there was something traumatic about the idea of rendering yourself infertile?" he said "For me, there was." 

Ha!  I find infertility a little fucking traumatic, too, even as a lowly woman!  Go figure.

"Potency is so delicate for men that anything that fucks with it is enough to give you pause."

For men.  Of course, for men, but apparently not for women.  Sexual organs and sexual function are not such a terribly delicate issue for women, or at least not if you ask a man.

The part that is really putting my knickers up in a twist today is that this guy's opinion isn't some fluke or anomaly.  He's not alone.  This attitude seems to be pretty well ingrained into the institution of medicine.

I wrote about this a long time ago, back when the doctors were repeatedly recommending that I get a hysterectomy to deal with my Endometriosis:

"Man, that whole hysterectomy thing is just pissing me right off. They don't just want the uterus. No, no. They want to do the TAH BSO (Total Abdominal Hysterectomy with Bilateral Salpingo-Oophorectomy) which means they want to hack everything out, up to and including my cervix and part of my vagina.

Over my dead body.

I've tried, really I have, to think of some male disease or disorder that routinely results in doctors casually recommending the removal of perfectly healthy testes, all supporting structures, and then whacking off the end of the winkie just for good measure (I can only imagine the Google searches I'm going to show up on now). I can't think of a damned thing.

There isn't even an adequate word for what they want to do to me, and that in and of itself pisses me off even further.

There is a word for this when it happens to men: Emasculation.

Why is there no word for this when it happens to women, especially considering the frequency and flippancy with which this happens to women? Women get castrated all the time, and nobody seems to think it matters. Why should it? We don't look any different. We can just pop an estrogen pill and buy a tube of KY down at the local Try-N-Save and be just as good as new, right?

Wrong.

Why are our sexual organs and indeed, our innate sexuality, given so little weight that the loss of them doesn't even merit a fucking entry in the dictionary?"

Well?  Why?

Keep Young and Beautiful

During my two weeks of nonstop OHSS fun, I gained some at lot of weight.  There is currently more of me to love than ever before. 

I went from a size twelve to an eighteen in less than ten days, and although I am rapidly deflating (after losing three inches in a week, I've started wondering if I should bleach my hair, start drunkenly endorsing diet pills and marry a really old guy), it's a little disconcerting.

Sam is taking this in typical male fashion.  "Wow.  Your boobs are HUGE.  Hey, can I touch them?"  Answer: "No!  My nipples still hurt!  Get your meathooks off of my dainties, you big icky man, you!" 

I recently bought new unmentionables, of the large white elasticky type.  Frankly, I needed the room and I thought Sam might like the change.  I usually wear cute underthings in fun colors, and apparently (if Internet searches are a reliable indicator) some guys really like the whole "white cotton underpants" thing.  Sam's response: "Wow.  Your underpants are HUGE.  You bought ginormous granny panties?"  Answer:  "No!  They're not granny panties!  They have lace!  And they're bikini style, you big icky man, you!"

Of course, he has done sweet, gallant things, like buying me miniature Butterfingers and quadruple layer chocolate cake without the slightest pointed glance at my gratuitously poofy belly.  He also said "Hey, you already look smaller.  You've already shrunk a lot, haven't you?"  Answer: "No.  And you still can't touch my boobs."

The thing is, I know that Sam loves me, granny panties or no.

Not everyone is so lucky.

According to an MSN gossip page, Madonna is decidedly unlucky.  Either that, or stupid.  You make the call:

"I wish I were comfortable enough to look zaftig," Madonna recently revealed to Elle. "But I choose men who like carved-out women, the can-you-run-for-the-bus kind of guy."

Um...what the hell?

If you're Madonna, and you have all that money and success and power and fame, and you're still afraid that your man won't want you if you're not thin and pretty?  Well, honey, that's just sad.  If you're Madonna and you have a daughter and you say tthings like that in print so that your daughter can see it and think that it's acceptable for your partner to reject you when you're no longer physically perfect?  Well, honey, that's super duper fucking sad.

I may be broke and infertile and fat and depressed, but gosh, suddenly I feel luckier than one of the most powerful women in the world.

And Then Things Started Getting REALLY Shitty...

It's never a good sign when, immediately upon introducing herself (and before even bothering to insert anything into your dainty girly areas), the Doctor Du Jour starts discussing cancellation.

My e2 is 10,300.

I have free fluid in my abdomen.  I'm not sure why they call it 'free fluid' when, by my tally, it's cost about $10,000 to get it in there.

Things aren't looking so hot.

Please, friends and total strangers, join me in prayer, or my heathen equivalent, 'thinking really hard'.  No no no, don't pray for ME, sillies.

Instead, please pray that the thoughtless bitch who ignored my clinic's clearly stated no-children-in-the-office policy and had the extremely bad taste to bring a crying toddler to the Reproductive Endocrinologist's office this morning (during IVF cycle monitoring hours, no less) gets some sort of unpleasant karmic penalty.  Keep in mind that the parent of this toddler had another able-bodied adult with her, an adult who sure as hell could have toted that child down to the lobby for ten damned minutes.

There's nothing quite like sitting in the phlebotomy chair, weeping and murmuring "...probably cancelled...my ovaries hurt..." while listening to somebody else's child have a tantrum in the very next room.

Ugh.

I'm coasting again tonight and getting poked and wanded again in the morning.

I am not feeling optimistic.

I Want Some Fucking Romance

Go ahead, trying outting yourself as an infertile in public. 

Studies show that within thirtyseven seconds, somebody will tell you that having kids isn't that great, pregnancy isn't that big of a deal, and that infertile women in general have no idea what it's really like to have a baby and are just romanticizing the whole experience.

Appropriate responses are as follows:

A: "No, I'm not."

B: "Yes, I am."

C: "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!  Ever since I had surgery for my tendonitis, my fist just flies out like that!  Are you okay?"

D: "I'm sorry, your point is...?"

As far as I'm concerned, they're all good answers, although you may want to have a kickass lawyer on retainer if you intend to rely heavily on C.

I've just about hit passed my tolerance point for this particular steaming pile.  Sam (who has a daughter) says "Of course people without children romanticize the idea of having children.  They have to, otherwise nobody would ever want to have children in the first place."

This is probably true.  Everybody who wants to have children always starts out with a dogeared collection of well loved imaginary scenarios. 

• The nights of carefree whoopee
• The triumphant two line stick
• The glowing pregnancy
• The easy, empowering birth
• The contented infant at the breast
• The coos and giggles

I could go on, but I'm starting to have Home Pregnancy Test commercial flashbacks ("I don't get that ad, honey.  She said 'It's how I knew Benjamin was coming.'  What, the stick had a window marked 'positive,' 'negative,' 'Benjamin?'  What the fuck kind of pregnancy test was she using?").

My point isn't that infertile women do or don't romanticize the whole thing.  For the most part, I think we don't.  Let's face it, infertility pretty much robs you of your faith that life will turn out the way you expected it to.  My point is that we should.

Wait, what?

No, really.  I think we should romanticize it.  If we don't, it's just one more thing that infertility has taken away from us.  We have the right to be stupidly optimistic and happy-fluffy-bunny as much as the next woman.  Why should we give up our pretty fantasies?  We have the right to dream, to imagine, to secretly hope.

We have the right to be innocent.

The next time some assclown tries to take you down a peg because you've got your head in the clouds and they want to tell you all about how horrible it is to have children, don't let them get away with it. 

Call them on it. 

Tell them that it's unkind to deny a person their innocence.

Insincere, Unbelievable, Unwatchable, Inconceivable

Akeeyu: Oh my God, this show is dumb.
Akeeyu: We are SO having a drinking game with this show when you're feeling better.
Akeeyu: Like, one shot for every stupid thing.
Emily : Drinking game?  With what?
Emily : I'll be drunk after one shot.
Akeeyu: Okay, we can do wine shots.
Emily : Can I have cheese with that?
Akeeyu: Yes.
Akeeyu: Soft cheese.
Emily : Oh, but of course.

Akeeyu: A woman walked into the office with triplets and said "First try, transferred three, they all took!" and nobody killed her.  My ass.  She would have been clotheslined halfway across the waiting room.
Emily : OMG, I'd be shooting out my t.v. screen.
Akeeyu: This show is SO MUCH STUPIDER than I even thought it would be.
Emily : I would barf if I watched it.  It will be off the air soon.  It's on during the 'dead' hour.  Who the fuck watches t.v. at home on a Friday night at 10?
Akeeyu: Hey! 
Emily : I mean, I know I'm boring and married, but still...
Akeeyu: I watch TV on a Friday night at 10!
Emily : No, you're writing ME and that shit is on in the background.
Akeeyu: I'm even more boring.
Emily : THAT'S what you're doing on a Friday night.
Akeeyu: Woohoo!  I'm boring AND a nerd!
Emily : I KNOW I'm boring.
Emily : I'm not a nerd though, but I do feel kind of cutting edge by IM'ing.
Akeeyu: Okay.  So, when we watch this together...Nerf balls to throw at the TV?
Emily : But I'm not a nerd because I don't use character abbreviations like R U there?
Emily : I hate shit like that.
Emily : It's destroying the english language.
Akeeyu: I know.  Note my use of punctuation.

Emily : Maybe if I shoot out the tv I'll get my plasma sooner.
Akeeyu: Nerf balls, microwave popcorn, and wine.
Emily : I think insurance companies should reimburse your need for a new tv if you destroy the old one over really, really bad shit on t.v.
Emily : That popcorn better have m&m's in it.
Akeeyu: I have a French wine called "Fat Bastard Chardonnay."  It has a hippopotomus on the label.  Because, you know, that's how I pick my wine.
Emily : I know it.  They make nice wine.
Emily : I pick mine up off that bum in the alley.
Emily : You know, because it's free?
Akeeyu: Oh, yeah.  And that Thunderbird shit?  That's the good stuff.
Emily : Seriously though, I don't drink much.  I'm a diet coke kind of girl.
Akeeyu: M&Ms and Junior Mints.
Emily : You're not taping this shit are you?
Akeeyu: Of course I am.
Akeeyu: I'm TiVoing it.
Emily : Are you going to make me watch a 'fresh' version of this?  Better hurry, it's probably only got like two episodes left.
Emily : Thank gawd.
Akeeyu: Sam would like to point out that he is missing perfectly good SciFi Channel to watch this with us.  And he's haaaaaating it.
Emily : You've got a good man.
Akeeyu: He's cranky, but good.
Akeeyu: I love that he knows enough to just rip this crap apart.
Akeeyu: There are pictures of babies all over their office.  Sam said "Who the hell would stay in that office?  I would have walked right out."
Akeeyu: OH MY GOD.
Akeeyu: OH MY GOD.
Emily : Spit it out!
Akeeyu: I just made a noise that...I don't even KNOW HOW TO SPELL IT.
Emily : See, I'm not the least bit curious to turn on the channel and see what has you so dumbstruck
Akeeyu: The nurse (hot guy, shya!) just said, after the gestational surrogate ended up having unprotected sex during the cycle and somehow getting pregnant on her own in the middle of a cycle "Well, maybe the Lindstroms weren't meant to be parents."
Emily : He did fucking not.
Akeeyu: HE DID.
Akeeyu: What the fuck?  Would a nurse in an IVF clinic really be passing judgements about ART and 'playing God?'
Akeeyu: ??
Emily : A won't let me turn it on, for fear of smashing the tv.
Akeeyu: Good choice.
Emily : I would be kicking something.
Akeeyu: We must have many Nerf balls and much wine when I bring the tape over.
Akeeyu: Damn straight.
Akeeyu: OH MY GOD.
Akeeyu: The adoption people are going to shit when they see this show.
Akeeyu: We're loading up on Nerf everything.

Akeeyu: Baskets of baby stuff in the waiting room??
Emily : WTF?
Akeeyu: See?
Emily : They make it seem that RE's make and deliver the babies.
Emily : That's not the case.  RE's never see a baby past 6 weeks
Emily : 8, tops.
Akeeyu: I know!
Emily : I'm not even sure RE's know which end babies come from.
Akeeyu: Yeah, and on this show, the REs are attending births?
Akeeyu: Riiiiiiiight.
Emily : WTF?
Emily : Who can afford THAT?
Akeeyu: At $400 an hour, they're going to be waiting around during birth?  Doing nothing?
Emily : It already cost people thousands of dollars just to MAKE the baby.  They're pretty spent and are giving birth in the fields for free after all that.
Akeeyu: Uh huh.
Akeeyu: And putting the baby in a damned tupperware bin for a crib.  I mean, that's what I plan to do.
Emily : Whoever wrote this shit should be banned from working ever again.
Akeeyu: They should be denied access to writing implements for the rest of their lives.  This doesn't even count as writing.
Emily : I want to hurt them.
Akeeyu: Oh my God.  The adoption people are going to SHIT.
Emily : WHAAT?
Akeeyu: Oh, you'll see.
Emily : TELL ME.
Akeeyu: It's so unbelievably lame.  Okay.  So the gestational surrogate who slept with her boyfriend and got pregnant during the cycle?  So now the couple doesn't want the baby and the surrogate doesn't want the baby, and now the receptionist wants to adopt the baby?
Akeeyu: Just like that?
Akeeyu: Yeah.
Akeeyu: Because getting approved for adoption doesn't take forever.
Akeeyu: Because you can just bring home some random baby, like it's a puppy from the pound??
Emily : Who the FUCK thought this was a good idea for a t.v. show?
Akeeyu: I KNOW.

Akeeyu: We could write better shows than this.
Emily : No shit.
Akeeyu: With both of our hands tied behind our backs.  Typing with our nipples.
Emily : To quote my beloved Jen, "They can suck my non lactating tit"
Akeeyu: Sam said if we wrote the truth about infertility and put it on the air, people would jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, because it's too damned depressing.

Akeeyu: Negative beta after five embryos transferred.
Akeeyu: And she just came in for the beta without testing first?
Emily : Yeah, riiiight.  Not peeing on the stick first.
Akeeyu: I'm not saying it's freaky that it was negative.  I'm just saying that she would have tested beforehand after three cycles.
Emily : Well, the five embryos and negative beta so far are the only thing realistic I've heard on this show.
Akeeyu: Yes, but she would have already known.
Emily : Most likely because her period would have been the first clue.
Akeeyu: LOL

Akeeyu: This nurse looks like a crack whore.
Emily : Maybe the nurse is a porn star
Akeeyu: Oh GOD.
Akeeyu: And here's the plotline I talked about with A.
Akeeyu: The one where the nurse, in a vengeful snit, blows the doctor, collects the semen, and then freezes it in the lab to be confused with someone else's.
Akeeyu: Because you can totally get a sample that way.
Akeeyu: Now all of our husbands are going to want their samples collected that way.
Akeeyu: Oh my God.  It's like a shotglass FULL of sperm.
Akeeyu: Are they kidding?
Emily : A shot glass of sperm?
Emily : Who ARE they kidding?
Akeeyu: Thank God it's over. Sam said "I hope you're happy.  Part of me died from having to watch that garbage."
Emily : This show is so cancelled.
Akeeyu: Worse.  What if it's not?
Emily : It will be cancelled.  Trust me.

Akeeyu: We're doing this again next week, right?

5150 or Bust

While Dr. Debate Team was entering my test information into the computer, I said "The thing I'm most concerned about is that with all this uncertainty regarding the PCOS, I just can't sleep anymore.  I'd like to get something to help me sleep, because the lack of sleep is putting me at greater risk for complications with my Manic Depression, which I'm not medicating because I'm trying to get pregnant."

Full stop.

"You're not taking your medication?"

If you ever want somebody's full and undivided attention, tell them that you're an unmedicated Crazy Person.  Dr. DebateTeam could not have looked more horrified if I'd told her that I ate stir fried kittens for breakfast every morning.

"Well, are you at least being monitored by your psychiatrist?"

"No."

Stir fried kittens with a tall glass of exploited widow's tears.  "Why not?"

"Because there's nothing he can do for me right now.  Also, his office hours are not great, it's a really inconvenient drive, and basically, it's a lot of stress to get seen."

"But...um...you should be talking to someone, and-"

"Why?  As long as they can't medicate me, there's no point in going through all that just to talk to someone for a half an hour a month."  Clearly, this woman has never sought psychiatric coverage from an HMO.  The additional layers of bullshit you have to sort through, the stupid questionnaires, the shoddy treatment by low-level Evil Insurance Company, Inc. phone minions?  Why, it's enough to make a girl go stark raving mad.  Whoops, too late.

"But...um...do you have a therapist you can talk to?  Because...um..."

"I have," I said (very slowly, as if I were talking to a complete lackwit, which, okay, I pretty much was) "a disease, and the treatment is a drug.  Talking to someone is not going to change that, and I'm not going to take Lithium in the first trimester because of the risks to the fetus."

"But...um...sometimes the risks of not taking the drugs are worse than the risks of taking them."

I just looked at her.  "If I have a child with a birth defect caused by Lithium, that's going to be a lot worse than what I'm feeling right now."

"But...um...you should..."

"I'm not taking Lithium, so the only way I can treat the Manic Depression right now is to try to treat the causes of stress in my life, and at the moment, untreated PCOS is the big one."

"But you might not even have PCOS."

"So...can I get that glucose test thing done anywhere, or do I have to come back here?"

"Um, anywhere.  Now, I'm going to prescribe something to help you sleep."

"Great.  Something safe while I'm trying to get pregnant, right?  Something Class B?"

"Right."

"Thank you."

As I walked down to the pharmacy, I figured the day wasn't a total loss.  At least I'd be able to sleep.

When I reached the pharmacy, however, I was told that my shiny new prescription was not safe for use during pregnancy.  The pharmacist didn't even want to dispense it unless I was absolutely certain I wasn't pregnant.  Dr. Google helpfully pointed out that it was, in fact, a Class X drug and as such, shouldn't be taken by anybody who could become pregnant in the near future.

Great.

I looked at the little bottle of promised sleep in the pharmacist's hand, the one with my name neatly stamped across the label and said "Well, I guess I won't be needing that today."

You know what pissed me off the most?

The fact that Dr. DebateTeam felt qualifed to make decisions about acceptable risks to my theoretical children.  That after talking to me for all of fifteen minutes, she felt comfortable declaring that untreated manic depression was a greater risk to a fetus than Lithium, a drug known to cause serious harm in pregnancy.

I said a lot of things to Dr. DebateTeam.  Not all of them were polite.  Honestly, I got a lot snippier than I've ever gotten with a medical 'professional.'

I did not, however, say this:

"Excuse me, Dr. DebateTeam, but I am an adult.  As such, I am allowed to make my own medical decisions.  You may not respect them, because you look at me and just see a Crazy Person, but when I look in the mirror, I see a person with a mental disease, and those two things are worlds apart.

"Don't tell me what risks are acceptable to my future children.  I'm their mother, goddamnit, and any decisions to be made about their well being or best interest will be made by me and their father, not you.

"You have no right to tell me to poison my body and endanger my children just because the idea of an unmedicated Crazy Person makes you uncomfortable.

"So I'm unhappy for a while.  So I'm clinically depressed for a couple of months.  So fucking what?  I've been through worse.  I can handle it.  As compared to the potential lifetime suffering of my child, this is not a big deal.  It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

"I know you don't respect my decision because I'm just a Crazy Person to you, but what you fail to take into account is the fact that my decision was made back when I was medicated and is therefore a completely rational (even by your standards) decision.

"I have a mental disease.  It doesn't have me."

Co-Pay

On Friday I saw Dr. DebateTeam.

Let's just chalk her up as a learning experience, shall we?

After calling Dr. DoesNotSuck's office and being told (repeatedly) that there was no way to be seen before the end of September and calling around to Evil Insurance Company, Inc's numerous other OB/GYN offices to one of only two places a woman can be seen for OB/GYN services by Evil Insurance Company, Inc within the entire greater Seattle area and excuse me, what the fuck?  What am I supposed to do if I get pregnant and have a serious emergency?  Cross my legs, cross my fingers, drive through bumper to bumper traffic for an hour and just hope that the baby's okay?  How can they have entire multi-floor hospitals without a single OB/GYN on staff?  I don't know that I, as a woman, have ever felt so poorly treated by an insurance company, and considering how much I hated Pacificare, that's really saying something, so...where was I?

Oh yeah.  So I called the other place (located about twenty minutes from their primary location, so if that one isn't close or convenient for you, rest assured, this one isn't, either) and begged to be seen and was told that, due to a member of their staff being on maternity leave (shoot me), they wouldn't be able to see me until the end of November.

I thanked them and hung up.

It was at this point that my Inner Skeptic woke up and yelled "I call Shenanigans.  Do they expect you to believe that if you were knocked up and experiencing a serious emergency, that they'd be brushing you off and trying to shoehorn you in for an appointment in ten weeks?  Uh, no."

My Inner Nice Girl (she's very small) said "Well...but you're not pregnant, so..."

My Inner Skeptic glared at my Inner Nice Girl and said "Yeah.  And you're probably never gonna be if you keep letting these idiots direct the pace of your medical care.  Now get off your ass and go get your questions about PCOS answered.  Move it." 

I saddled up my trusty bald-tired steed and rode, like a weepy, red-eyed knight, into battle.  Off I went, directly into the bowels of Evil Insurance Company, Inc., prepared to fight the Scheduling Minions on their own terms.

Yes, that's right.  I pulled out the one weapon that is white hot death to the resolve of the "We don't have any appointments in your lifetime" receptionists: I stood in front of the intake desk and criiiiiiiiiiiiiied until they got me in to see someone.  The tears, I should note, were entirely genuine.  I just stopped trying to hold them back and bam, WeepFest '05.

Five minutes of crying, five minutes in chairs, and in came Dr. DebateTeam.

Apparently it becomes "the end of November" really goddamned quick when you cry.  Am I proud of the crying?  Not particularly.  On the other hand, Evil Insurance Company, Inc. should be deeply ashamed of the fact that their patients are being charged a co-pay of tears in order to access their physicians.