Paperwork

Last night T and I filled out the paperwork for the IVF visit. It made me a little sad. Like I said, because we know what the problem is, this visit will be different than most people's first visit, I imagine. We'll make a plan for the sperm analysis, make some inquiries about insurance issues, and tell them we'll call them when we feel like we're ready for some assistance (6 months to a year from now if we're unsuccessful). I have no idea if that's how it's going to work, but I'm mentally preparing myself. I really hope they don't try to convince us that our decision is the wrong one. I'm very worried about that.

It's still raining here. It's supposed to rain tomorrow. We have some moisture in the basement, but it's not too bad. The leak in the roof is all going into the huge storage bin so that's not causing problems, either. The cats were unhappy because their walk to the litter box was a bit damp. I moved it to drier parts this morning, so hopefully they'll be a little happier with that now. My oldest brother has no water in his basement (they waterproofed when they finished it) but pools in his yard. But my other brother has a really, really wet basement and the sump can't keep up with all of the water. They're vacuuming it all up. T and I are bummed that we didn't buy a wet/dry vac when we had the opportunity, but oh well. We'll definitely buy one now. Considering we've had nearly a foot of rain in less than a week, we're doing pretty well. Other parts of this state aren't fairing nearly as well.

I'm going to talk about work for a bit. For my job I find people who would be willing to participate in my research study. It involves meeting with me and taking either medication or a placebo (It's double-blind. We don't know who's taking what.) Now, in order to be in this study, you have to meet certain medical criteria, and you have to be able to give informed consent. That is, you have to be able to understand that we're testing the medicine to see if it's helping the specific circumstance of the study. (I won't explain the details here, but let me know if you're curious. I'm not offended if you're not. It's somewhat tedious.) So, one of the doctors here (who will leave this hospital soon, of his own volition) tells me to go talk to this guy because he's having the surgery that qualifies for my study. So I go talk to him. He's a very nice guy, and he seems interested in the study. But the more I talk to him, the more I feel like this guy doesn't understand his medical circumstances. Then I get back to my office and look up his medical history. He has a big psychiatric history. He's stable and on his meds. But the only medical follow-up he does is psychiatric. He ignores the rest of his health. He doesn't take his meds, and it seems like he doesn't really understand his own health care. Not a good candidate. Why would he say he was a really good patient? I just don't get it. I mean, I know all of this medical stuff is complicated, but as a former teacher, I feel like I have a good sense of when people get it. This guy didn't get it. At all. I'm glad that doctor is leaving.