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May. 6th, 2014 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slemslempikeToday is my second (and final) week of my medical study. Each cycle is four ultrasounds, one day of wearing oestregen patches, and one day of blood tests every ten minutes while hooked up to an IV of saline or kisspeptin.
I quite enjoyed it at first, but now I am over the excitement of the new. Except for today I got to wheel my IV thing into the toilet, which was like on TV.
The ultrasound appointments are in the fertility clinic, with Karolina the researcher, and a professor guy who's leading the study. He was fine, I guess, but annoyed me at the first appointment by rearranging my "modesty sheet" without asking me or anything. It wasn't even to get better access, I guess he just felt it wasn't lying properly. Huh. For the second ultrasound, and only the second ultrasound, there was also a nurse chaperone - Karolina said that they "had to" have one, but they hadn't before, and didn't for the others. Who knows. Oddly, the day the nurse was there was the only day it was painful when they were trying to get a better look at an ovary. It was nice to have her there because she put a comforting hand on my shoulder, and reminded me that I could ask them to stop if I needed to (both doctors having completely ignored my mildly anguished exclamations).
Generally, though, ultrasounding is much, much more comfortable than a smear. It was interesting to see my uterus on the screen, by which I mean it probably would have been interesting if I had been able to make out anything from the various blurred spots on the screen. Apparently my coil is in exactly the right place, and I was producing healthy eggs and follicles. Or maybe the follicles are the eggs? I don't know. They measured them to see if they had grown over the past few days, I think 7mm was mentioned. Is that not too big, though? I thought eggs were like only visible under a microscope.
They have succeeded in making the ultrasound wand not look like a dildo. Instead it looks mostly like a g spot attachment for a dildo. They cover it in a latex sheath, which I initially thought was just a condom, but further investigation while getting re-dressed there was a box specifically labelled as ultrasound covers. They were made by Passante though, so I wonder if they're just condoms rebadged, or just what they do when the factory messes up.
The blood testing day is mostly fine. They provide lunch, except I am too fussy for sandwiches involving butter or mayonnaise, so the first time it was two slices of lukewarm toast and three plasticy slices of mild cheddar. And a strawberry yoghurt (worst flavour)... and a banana. This time I asked for jam on my toast instead of cheese, and did not get a banana.
It's sort of quite nice to have the day lying on a relatively comfortable bed, watching TV. The first day I tried to knit, but this led to a blockage in my cannula with my elbow bending the tube, and a sore arm after they kept putting plasters on and ripping them of again to resettle it. So after I'd watched all the TV I felt like seeing I just dozed for a few hours. Then when the cannulae came out one spurted a bit over me and it spread all over my t shirt and looked like I'd been shot. This time round it took quite a long time to get one of them in, and success only came after quite a while with my arm wrapped in a heating pad. However, I've not been knitting so they haven't had to be redone today.
Not entirely sure I've earned the £250 for it, but I will certainly be pleased to receive it.
I quite enjoyed it at first, but now I am over the excitement of the new. Except for today I got to wheel my IV thing into the toilet, which was like on TV.
The ultrasound appointments are in the fertility clinic, with Karolina the researcher, and a professor guy who's leading the study. He was fine, I guess, but annoyed me at the first appointment by rearranging my "modesty sheet" without asking me or anything. It wasn't even to get better access, I guess he just felt it wasn't lying properly. Huh. For the second ultrasound, and only the second ultrasound, there was also a nurse chaperone - Karolina said that they "had to" have one, but they hadn't before, and didn't for the others. Who knows. Oddly, the day the nurse was there was the only day it was painful when they were trying to get a better look at an ovary. It was nice to have her there because she put a comforting hand on my shoulder, and reminded me that I could ask them to stop if I needed to (both doctors having completely ignored my mildly anguished exclamations).
Generally, though, ultrasounding is much, much more comfortable than a smear. It was interesting to see my uterus on the screen, by which I mean it probably would have been interesting if I had been able to make out anything from the various blurred spots on the screen. Apparently my coil is in exactly the right place, and I was producing healthy eggs and follicles. Or maybe the follicles are the eggs? I don't know. They measured them to see if they had grown over the past few days, I think 7mm was mentioned. Is that not too big, though? I thought eggs were like only visible under a microscope.
They have succeeded in making the ultrasound wand not look like a dildo. Instead it looks mostly like a g spot attachment for a dildo. They cover it in a latex sheath, which I initially thought was just a condom, but further investigation while getting re-dressed there was a box specifically labelled as ultrasound covers. They were made by Passante though, so I wonder if they're just condoms rebadged, or just what they do when the factory messes up.
The blood testing day is mostly fine. They provide lunch, except I am too fussy for sandwiches involving butter or mayonnaise, so the first time it was two slices of lukewarm toast and three plasticy slices of mild cheddar. And a strawberry yoghurt (worst flavour)... and a banana. This time I asked for jam on my toast instead of cheese, and did not get a banana.
It's sort of quite nice to have the day lying on a relatively comfortable bed, watching TV. The first day I tried to knit, but this led to a blockage in my cannula with my elbow bending the tube, and a sore arm after they kept putting plasters on and ripping them of again to resettle it. So after I'd watched all the TV I felt like seeing I just dozed for a few hours. Then when the cannulae came out one spurted a bit over me and it spread all over my t shirt and looked like I'd been shot. This time round it took quite a long time to get one of them in, and success only came after quite a while with my arm wrapped in a heating pad. However, I've not been knitting so they haven't had to be redone today.
Not entirely sure I've earned the £250 for it, but I will certainly be pleased to receive it.
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