3257 Frustration

Friday, May 20, 2011

PMS - the time just before a woman's menstrual period when she acts like a man.

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It's now 4 pm. When I called the urologist's office yesterday afternoon, the receptionist said that he was back, but had not yet looked at my reports. He'd call me when he did. He hasn't called yet. I'm getting angry.

Yeah, I know many of the people sitting in his waiting room have bladder cancer, end-stage kidney failure, prostate cancer, things more serious than my miserable stones. BUT! It's serious and important to me!

I can't go anywhere, like up to the old house, because the stent keeps the valve between the kidney and the bladder open, so the kidney keeps dumping into the bladder and causes urinary urgency. When I get the first slight hint that I have to go, I have to go immediately! Like within five seconds. It's exactly ten steps from the computer to the downstairs bathroom, and when I'm wearing the jeans with the side buttons and zipper, I almost don't make it. So if I know I'm going to be away from a bathroom, I can't drink anything. The drive north is too far. I can't get repeatedly that dehydrated while I have the stones.

I'm worried that the useless stent is rubbing and messing up my bladder.

I'm worried that the blocked collection chamber is damaging my left kidney. The kidney is almost unique in the body in that it's the only organ that can't heal. Any damage is permanent, does not get better, ever. In fact, any damage gets worse over time. It's like the kidney is made of dominoes.

I want this fixed NOW!

I'd change doctors, except that being a new patient, I know it will take at least two weeks, probably more, to get an appointment with another.

I am extremely frustrated.

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I heard on TV yesterday that they're seeing an increase in skin cancer on the fingers, a very unusual place, and have pretty much identified it as due to nail polish dryers that use UV light. (I have to wonder about that. Why UV? Wouldn't infra red light be the logical choice for drying nail polish?)

Anyway, today on TV Dr. Oz was pushing teeth whitening systems using UV light. You stick the darn light in your mouth! Ok. How long before they start seeing an increase in mouth cancers? And how long will it take them to figure out why?
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3185 Two classes

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Computers have raised writing to a new low.

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I went to the grandparents' education class at the maternity hospital last night. The 4 hours did cover a lot more than just "put the kid on its back". They went over the labor and delivery procedures and policies and a whole bunch of stuff, and ended with a tour of the labor/delivery rooms (very homey, and you deliver in the same room as labor) and the nursery and so on. They do have rooming-in if the mommy wants it. It all sounded pretty good.

I did have two spots of annoying concern.

• Five people had signed up: me, two women who were apparently the future maternal and paternal grandmas of the same baby, and a grandma/grandpa couple. The couple didn't show up, so it was just three of us. And yet, the nurse conducting the class, fully expecting five people, had brought only two informational packets. Um, disorganized much?
• The nurse said she teaches the Lamaze classes, and she repeatedly referred to "pain". Pain, pain, pain. It was always, over and over, pain.

It's my opinion that it's NOT pain. It is extremely intense, yes, but it's like when someone else removes a splinter from your finger, it hurts, but when you remove the splinter yourself, even though you are doing the exact same thing, it's not pain. If everything goes as it's designed to, if you fully understand what is going on during birth, if you understand that your uterus knows exactly what it's doing and is doing it right, if you are able to relax the rest of your body so that all the energy goes to the uterus, and if you are allowed to feel that you retain control of what's happening to you, knowing that you are delivering the baby, not the doctor, then it's not painful**. It's hard hard work, and very intense, but not painful.

If, however, someone in a position of authority tells you over and over that it will be painful, then I guarantee it will be. It sets you up with the expectation, which causes tension, which CAUSES PAIN! and even when there's no tension, if you expect pain, then you will interpret the expected intense contractions not as the natural wonder of the uterus doing its job in spectacular fashion (wow! look how strong it is!), but you will interpret it as pain, because that's what you'd been told it is.

Bullshit!

I've had two babies completely absolutely totally naturally, no meds whatsoever, one baby's head was out before I got to the hospital, and it was very hard work and very tiring, but THERE WAS NO PAIN! Because I knew what was going on, and I knew about relaxing the lower muscles and pushing only with the upper muscles, exactly the opposite of the "like a bowel movement" crap they tell you, which is completely counter-productive and will cause the vagina and vulva to resist, which causes the muscles there to separate rather than to stretch, which causes PAIN! and tearing. Or that "little snip", which should be totally unnecessary. Plus if those muscles separate rather than stretch, they don't go back and you end up loose.

I do know whereof I speak.

Anyone who wants to argue that they have more experience in these matters and they know I'm wrong, simply has the wrong experience, dealing with frightened tense women who have been taught to push wrong and to expect pain and who feel no control.

So there!

**Note that women who deliver "by surprise" in their kitchens, or in a taxi, with no meds, nobody taking over, never say anything about pain.

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Daughter took an interesting anatomy class last year. The class got (relatively) fresh cadavers, and, in groups of three, over the course of the class, they took their cadavers completely apart.

Daughter was fascinated by all of it, of course, but one thing was surprising to her. In anatomy books and everywhere else, when there's a diagram of what's inside, they all show the liver "here", the spleen "here", the kidneys "there", the pancreas "over there", the intestines "just so", and so on. The diagrams always look pretty much the same.

'Tain't so. When the students visited each other's cadavers, they discovered that the organs were all over the place. Some higher than expected, some lower, some more toward the center, some flat-out reversed or backward, some much larger or smaller than expected. It seems it isn't really all that easy to predict where you'll find something. Or even that it will actually be there.

Cool. Makes laparoscopic surgery a treasure hunt.

(I'm remembering the surprise when we discovered that Jay had only one HUGE kidney. Now I'm wondering why the doctors freaked out over that.)
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