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Success after IF
Smudges*Mom
member
S/O of Babbsy's post: Poll
Smudges*Mom
member
In honor of Babby's nurse's stupid question, what is the dumbest/most insensitive thing that a medical professional has asked or said to you?
For me, it was when I was in the hospital, the day before I had Grant. Its a bit of a long story, but here goes. . .
I was overdue (how overdue depends upon whose EDD you want to use, my OB thought I was one week overdue, IMO, I was 11 days overdue). My induction was supposed to begin that evening. . . but somebody (my OB or his nurse) forgot to enter the induction request/scheduling into the computer system. . . I had to call to see what was going on. Come to find out, L&D was full, so my induction was being pushed back from Friday evening until Sunday morning. OMG. I hit the roof and I am certain that my (already elevated) blood pressure spiked. I was beside myself and let it be known to the woman I was on the phone with that this was not acceptable. Ultimately, I calmed down. . . but I was not happy, dealing with it, but not happy.
Well, about 30 minutes later, I got the worst pain I've ever felt in my right side and I could not get a full breath. I called the nurse back because I thought maybe it was the start of labor. She told me to get into the tub to relax and to drink 40 ounces of water and that she'd call me back in an hour. Well, I did what she said. . . while in the tub, I threw up. She called back and told me to hang at home for a while longer and that somebody would call me back. . . I asked if I could come into the hospital and she said no, to wait at home.
Thirty minutes later, I was in the worst pain I've ever been in, so we made the decision to simply go to the ER at the hospital. We got the ER, they triaged me and positioned me for pick-up by somebody from L&D. After 15 minutes, I was still there. . . so one of the ER nurses took me upstairs. . . I threw-up enroute to L&D. (Fun times!) We got up to L&D, they were full, so they put me into an overflow room and started to access me.
After a bit of time (not sure of time at this point as I was still in extreme pain and hadn't had a full breath in well over 2 hours due to the pain on my right side), my blood pressure is dangerously high. . . a resident comes in to talk to me. (Turns out, we learned later, that this resident is doing a rotation with the MFM docs. . . )
The gist of the conversation is that this resident was aware of my conversation regarding my delayed induction and that I was very upset about being delayed. She then goes on to ask if my current situation was an emotional reaction/response and if I was okay with them simply bringing my blood pressure down and sending me home--to wait until my scheduled induction on Sunday morning. Basically, this woman was telling me it was all in my head, to calm down and to go home and wait it out.
Turns out I had HELLP Syndrome--a very severe form of preeclampsia--which, if untreated, can be deadly. Let's review the key symptoms of HELLP:
- right-sided upper abdominal pain or pain around the stomach
- nausea, vomiting
- headache
- increased blood pressure
- protein in the urine
- edema (swelling)
Of these symptoms, the only one that I did not have was a headache. . . and as my brother mentioned--I likely had a headache, but everything else hurt so badly that the head didn't register (and looking back, I think he's right!).
So yes, this doctor suggested to me that my symptoms were all in my head and was considering sending me home. Instead, less than five hours later, I was in the OR, having an emergency c-section. Way to be on top of it doc!
(FWIW, this resident did come to my room two days later and apologized.)
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Re: S/O of Babbsy's post: Poll
I do LOVE my cardiologist but one of our first visits a couple years ago he said something that has stuck with me.
I have a pretty severe heart defect so I needed specialized care and permission to even get pregnant. I had been seeing a different cardiologist prior to that and then found out that we had to do treatment. My old cardio had said that we could lead a happy childless life. WTF #1.
So...I switched cardios and went to my current one. I had a long meeting with him and he said it was still ok to get pregnant. At the very end I said "so, its ok if we do IVF right? The drugs won't do anything to my heart. Can I transfer two embryos?". He responded "huh? you don't have to do IVF because of your heart. You can just have sex. You are ok to have sex." Oh lordy! I had discussed with the patient coordinator about our IF issues but he missed that part of the chart. The kicker, the patient coordinator had said the doc has trips and that he had done IVF.
I used to think that medical professionals were infallible and you were supposed to take their word as gospel... until I had Jack and spent months in the hospital with him... I learned the hard way they can be wrong and often are, and they are most certainly capable of being huge a$$holes. I've still only met 1 surgeon who wasn't a huge jerk.
Anywho... most insensitive/asinine comment from a medical professional:
Long story short Jack's first cardiac surgery was successful BUT a mistake was also made by the surgeon AND he ended up nearly dying from sepsis a week and a half later (which didn't happen because of the mistake but was exacerbated by it).
So yeah - said a$$hole surgeon (let's call him Dr. P) NEVER came and talked to us about the mistake he made - someone else told us... he never came and visited Jack when he was in grave danger of dying.... Dr. P only got around to visiting in the cardiac ICU when he heard that I had requested a *different* surgeon do the repair of the mistake that he made.
That jacka$$ came into our ICU pod at 11:30 at night! to ask me why I requested another surgeon... I calmly explained that while I understand no surgeon is perfect and I understand that sometimes mistakes can happen in complicated surgeries.. I needed him to humor me and allow the other surgeon to do the repair because I just wasn't comfortable with him operating on my son again. You know what that a$$ said... and I quote...
"You do realize who I am don't you? I'm the head of the transplant team - Dr. E (the one I wanted to do the repair) is not a better surgeon than me."
LOL... the balls on that guy... way to put aside your ego for the sake of seriously ill child... he's lucky I can keep my cool because I was tempted to throatpunch him.
Instead I calmly replied "Yeah, well you might be the head of the transplant team but you did screw up Jack's surgery... Dr. E's got that plus about 30 years experience on you. Now please get the hell out of my room and don't ever come back. Have a great night."
Hannah
This. I'm certainly learning that we must be our own best advocate (for ourselves and our families!).
Shocking what some professionals think is okay to say. . .
Mine was from my OB two weeks after my C-section. He asked me about birth control and I told him we didn't need any (we used donor sperm).?
He then proceeded to tell us this story about a couple who tried for years didn't?conceive, adopted, and then they got pregnant. He actually used the words, "Often once you relax things just happen so you never know."
I was in tears at this point and just said, "My husband has no sperm because he's missing part of his Y chromosome, I don't think it's a matter of relaxing."
I think he felt bad, but it was awful and so?insensitive. ?
Dumbest: The u/s tech during my NT scan. She is looking around at the babies, who are very clearly identical, saying, "Oh, you have twins in there." Then I say, "Yes, identical twins." Then she says, "No, fraternal twins. You did IVF, and all IVF twins are fraternal."
After 2 rounds of IVF & 2 rounds of FET, we were blessed with identical twin girls!
When DS was a week old, a family doctor at our local (rural) clinic told us that DS had severe jaundice and we needed to go to the children's hospital ER (just over a hour away) immediately. We were not to go home, get in our vehicle and drive there RIGHT AWAY. While I as putting DS back in his carseat, the doctor starting telling DH all of the risks of severe jaundice and what could happen if it was treated immediately.
It took us 45 minutes to get to the hospital, DH broke every speeding limit. I was crying the entire way. The pediatrician that saw him, was unsure why we were there, DS didn't look that jaundiced to him, but he did the bilirubin level tests. DS wasn't even in the treatable range for jaundice.
I understand that the 1st doctor we saw was concerned about it, but his manner and the things he said, completely uncalled for. He scared us so bad. I come to find out later he had only seen one other baby with jaundice while he had been practicing at this clinic. I refuse to see that doctor if I do have to go to the clinic, and we take DS to a pediatrician in the city.
I used to work for a Dr. and was in the room w/ him when he was telling a patient she had breast cancer. The woman understandably starting panicking and flipping out. She asked for a couple of minutes to herself so the Dr. and I stepped out of the room. The Dr turned to me and another coworker and goes, "Gosh, I don't understand what her problem is!" My eyes got HUGE and I said, "YOU JUST TOLD HER SHE HAS CANCER! I would be acting the same way!!!" ... Then he tried to cover it up by saying, "Well I mean yea, but she's out of control!"
I hated that guy ... I quit like 2 weeks later.