Doctor Doolittle

It has occurred to me while writing some of these posts how totally messed up my experiences have been with Doctors and Nurses over the course of my adult life. I look back through the window of my past and see many dismal visits to the Doctors office where I was told in many circumstances "they could do nothing for me." Pre-miscarriage I have been a walking, talking orb of endometriosis. What is endometriosis you ask?

http://www.ivf.com/endohtml.html

"Endometriosis, a cause of female infertility, is a condition in which endometrial tissue, the tissue that lines the inside of the uterus, grows outside the uterus and attaches to other organs in the abdominal cavity such as the ovaries and Fallopian tubes. Endometriosis is a progressive disease that tends to get worse over time and can reoccur after treatment. Symptoms include painful menstrual periods, abnormal menstrual bleeding and pain during or after sexual intercourse.
The endometrial tissue outside your uterus responds to your menstrual cycle hormones the same way the tissue inside your uterus responds - it swells and thickens, then sheds to mark the beginning of the next cycle. The blood that is shed from the endometrial tissue in your abdominal cavity has no place to go, resulting in pools of blood causing an inflammation that forms scar tissue. The scar tissue can block the Fallopian tubes or interfere with ovulation. Another result of endometriosis is the formation of ovarian cysts called endometriosis that may also interfere with ovulation.

The cause of endometriosis is unknown though there are a few theories that suggest possible causes. One theory suggests that during menstruation, some of the menstrual tissue backs up through the Fallopian tubes into the abdomen where it implants and grows. Another theory indicates that it is a genetic birth abnormality in which endometrial cells develop outside the uterus during fetal development.

A laparoscopy, an outpatient surgical procedure, is necessary to confirm a diagnosis of endometriosis after a medical history review and pelvic exam. After the initial diagnosis, your physician will classify your condition as stage 1 (minimal), stage 2 (mild), stage 3 (moderate) or stage 4 (extensive) based on the amount of scarring and diseased tissue found. Based on the stage of endometriosis, your physician will determine the best treatment plan for you which may include medication or surgery, or a combination of both. "

For years I walked around in so much pain that I couldn't walk or even move because I had such bad cramps. I would miss at least two days a month because of the pain. I would visit my Doctor and I would get repetitive prescriptions of vicadon (I don't recommend this) to stop the pain. I never took the pills, I just suffered through the pain, month after month for six or so years. I finally met a Doctor who recognized immediately that I needed to have a laparoscopy to remove some of the scar tissue that was causing the severe pain. In 2003 I went through the surgery and some of the pain eventually went away. But for so many years I was just handed a prescription and said "take these" and that was the medical communities way of "solving" my pain.

I track back to my first miscarriage and remember how soul's the Doctor's and Nurses seemed. They poked me with needles and prodded my vagina without tender care which a vagina indeed deserves. It gives life if you're lucky! I look through the scope of my emotional pain and then I see how careless and unmoved the Doctor's were when they were gearing me up for my 1st D&C. So cold. Intellectually I get that Doctors see this kind of loss every day, yet emotionally I do not understand how human beings can deaden themselves so much to skip over the tiny heart beat of life. They are not just tiny cells.

I look back to the second miscarriage (I don't have to look back too far- it was just under 1 1/2 months ago) and I see Dr. Martinez before I go under. He looks as though he is getting ready to bake a ham. Smile on his face. When I visit Dr. Martinez (notice I am naming names) two weeks after the D&C for a routine check up I am with Bob and I am stable. I am coping. Crushed and ruined but coping. I hoist myself up onto the examining table and begins to cry. Something about being in an OB office right after you have lost a baby brings tears, what can I say. Dr. Martinez looked me square in the face and said "You gotta stop being so sad!" Bob chimed in and made sure the Doctor knew that I had been doing "okay" that it was just difficult for me to visit the office. Now, what pisses me off the most about this is that I said nothing and I stopped crying. When I look back, in my minds eye, I slap him across the face and end the visit. Why didn't I do that then? This is the very same Doctor that called me two days before Christmas to let me know that my "chromosomal were normal, that of a baby girl!" How dare he.

I search back and realize that so many of my experiences within the medical world have been negative. Even when I have sworn I would demand attention and take control of my own health. It doesn't seem to matter. And I am not saying there aren't good Doctors out there. I am saying that I haven't met too many.

Miscarriage aside, mental health professionals are so eager to drug the masses and call it a day? Now what the hell is that all about? How can someone make a FULL accurate mental health diagnosis in one hour? Impossible and dangerous. Let's just say my health has been at risk a few times due to the lack of psychiatric professional responsibility and carelessness administered by each and every psych Doc I have seen in ten years. Be careful. (I warn this loudly)

And it echoes back to Dr. Martinez prescribing me ORTHO EVRA two weeks after my 2nd miscarriage... how irresponsible especially since I was adamant about the fact that I did not do well on hormones and that if the patch was anything like the pill then it would not be a good fit for me. He said it was "totally different" and wrote me a prescription.

Now... if you count the number of times I have said "prescription" in this blog... that in of itself, is scary.