Friday, November 16, 2007

Teacher's Pet

I had my Lupron scan yesterday, followed by our injectibles class. I was feeling a little uncomfortable, as our "usual" nurse wasn't there. Our friendly, wry, Wanda Sykes-esque nurse was replaced by, well, let's just call her Bubbles the Clown. She was a very large woman, all smiles, way too chipper, and very close to annoying when she told us that she was terrible with names, but could "recognize an ovary anywhere." That's quite a feat to me, considering everything on the screen looks like gray matter. In any case, in that gray matter she managed to find 10 follicles on the right, 15 on the left. When we asked if that was "normal," she spoke to us like were were preschool students:

"How many babies do you want?"

"One."

"That's right." (She is now holding up one finger for those playing the home game.) "One." "Then one follicle is all you need."

Somehow I don't think we're ever going to get an answer to our question regarding what is or is not "normal."

Following our lesson in numbers by Nurse Bubbles, we were ushered into another room for the injectables class. Another woman in the class told us she was a physician, so that gave me some added level of comfort knowing that there was an M.D. in our midst who had chosen our RE over everyone else available in the Southern California area. The nurse was a little miffed when she learned that no one had notified us that we were supposed to bring our medications to the class -- she wanted us to be able to lay everything out on the table so she could point out what everything was, what it was for, and to generally answer any questions.

That was when my husband, bless his heart, pulled out his spreadsheet. Now, my husband is an accountant, and I usually tease him about the fact that he has a spreadsheet for everything. This one contained all the medications, when each one starts, the method for administering (including body part), size of the needle, extra notes, etc. Everyone "ooohed" and "aaahed." The nurses even asked if they could make copies. My heart secretly swelled with pride.

My husband had his opportunity to apply what he learned in class yesterday when we began the Lupron this morning. I have to admit, I did lose some sleep over this last night. As it turned out, it really wasn't so bad, other then some significant burning I felt after the fact. I came to realize only later (by way of a "DUH" email from my husband at work) that he was so nervous he accidentally swabbed the injection site with rubbing alcohol AFTER giving the injection! Hopefully, this can only get easier...

2 comments:

Yeah So said...

Yes, it definitely gets easier! The nerves are the worst part. I remember literally crying at our injection class and wondered why everyone else wasn't horrified by having to inject themsleves with needles! My husband who was totally calm, ended up being the one who freaked out and I injected myself!

Good job on the spreadsheet!!

Country Chick said...

Bubbles sounds like a nightmare. Just what you don't want when you are asking perfectly natural questions - someone to give you patronising replies.