Just Call Me Dr Feelgood

posted by nblevins on Sunday, February 08, 2009


As most of you all know by now, Crystal and I are working on starting a family.  After quite some time of trying on our own, we finally came to the conclusion that we needed to seek medical assistance in order to reach our goals.  I am going to spare everyone the gory details, but it suffices to say that it is a generally intrusive process (no pun intended) and can take something that is really fun and make it no so fun ( kind of like Dylan ) (sorry, Dylan, could not resist… ).  Anyway, that is not so say that there are not some fun aspects to the process that we are going through.  As the saying goes, there is always a silver lining.  In fact, I was able to see and appreciate one such instance that I am quite proud of.  So, without further ado, let me introduce you to Dr. Feelgood Blevins MD, FoS. 

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A bit of backstory… 

Through the process of working w/ the fertility clinic, a patient is assigned fertility drugs.  The main purpose of these drugs are to even out what would otherwise be an irregular cycle for egg production for a female.  The drugs (clomid in this case) increases the chance of having a child by causing the ovaries to essentially prepare more eggs for ‘droppage’ (and does a myriad of other things as well – like make the wife very very cranky… very very very cranky… ;)  )  Anyway, once those suckers are ready for the bombing, the fertility specialist will assign a ‘specially trained’ person to give the patient a shot to basically ‘shake the tree,’ causing eggs to fall like manna from heaven.  Once there, those unsuspecting eggs are open for attack from the vicious helmet-headed micro aliens from some where near Uranus.

So, as Crystal and I were working through this process, it came to pass that I was granted the esteemed privilege of giving my wife a shot into her hind quarters after about 12 seconds of rigorous training in med school.  Being the fair, level headed, and even keeled guy that I am, I accepted this solemn duty and promised to approach it with dignity and without heckling Crystal about it for DAYS… … … 

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Anyway, through it all, Crystal was a fair enough sport to let me take a few pictures of the carnage and, despite my claims of having ‘shaky hands,’ I feel that I performed my duties admirably.  Since I had such a good time w/ it all, I felt compelled to share w/ the world.  Maybe I should reconsider my career?

So the real question is, who’s next?

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Comments

*Excellent photos*
Sunday, February 08, 2009
they totally make the story. Crystal's is hilarious!
Comment By: Gabriel.

No offense taken
Sunday, February 08, 2009
It is an honor and a privilege to be compared to a medical procedure that brings millions of couples such joy. I will merely overlook the fact that such a comparison also likens me to much cutting, stabbing, poking, bleeding, and hurting.

As I've said, your shaky hands couldn't have been worse than when my mom had to give me shots during one round of chemo. Imagine a 40-something-year old woman peering through bifocals, terrified of messing up while filling the syringe because they told her how much each little bottle cost, and all the while preparing to stab me with a pointy needle. (No disrespect to mom, either--she'd tell you the same thing.)

As to the question of "who's next": NOT IT. My egg production cycle is perfectly normal, thank you very much.
Comment By: Dylan Wolf

Monday, February 09, 2009
Eggcellent pix. And thank God Dylan's egg production is normal.
Comment By: Dave

[I Suck At Titles]
Monday, February 09, 2009
@Gabe + @Dave - I actually had a blast taking the pictures. Nothing like dashing around the house w/ a extraordinarily sharp needle in one hand and a camera in the other, especially when you keep putting one of them to your eye.

@Dylan - I could only imagine the amount of angst that would cause on both ends of the needle. To be honest, I was not too worried, except I could not friggin' get all the air bubbles out. I am not 100% sure what injecting air into the blood stream would do, specfically, but I know it is BAD. Would be be something akin to the bends? [Googling]

"An air embolism, or more generally gas embolism, is a medical condition caused by gas bubbles in the bloodstream (embolism in a medical context refers to any large moving mass or defect in the blood stream). Small amounts of air often get into the blood circulation accidentally during surgery and other medical procedures (for example a bubble entering an intravenous fluid line), but most of these air emboli enter the veins and are stopped at the lungs, and thus a venous air embolism that shows any symptoms, is very rare.

For very large venous air embolisms, death may occur if a large bubble of gas (centimeters) becomes lodged in the heart, stopping blood from flowing from the right ventricle to the lungs (this is similar to vapor lock in engine fuel systems). However, experiments in animals show that the amount of gas necessary for this to happen is quite variable, and also depends on a number of other factors, such as body position. Very large and symptomatic amounts of venous air emboli may also occur in rapid decompression in severe diving or decompression accidents, where they may interfere with circulation in the lungs and result in a choking sensation or hypoxia."

So glad that I did not read that beforehand... ... ...

Anyway, NOT IT!
Comment By: Nathan

Oops...
Monday, February 09, 2009
Forgot to credit Wikipedia for that information... (as if there are any other sources of info out there... ;) )
Comment By: Nathan

Depends...
Monday, February 09, 2009
Actually, the only thing mom was worried about was spilling the medicine. It was subcutaneous (under the skin) so the air bubble thing wasn't a big deal. Also, it wasn't a vital part of chemo, it was just something to help my blood counts recover faster.

I'm sure if you injected air under the skin it would hurt like hell, but it wouldn't be outright dangerous like injecting air bubbles into an IV. Unless they gave you a very serious training course about how to find and stick veins, her shots were probably subcutaneous. (Clue #2: I don't think the "hind quarters" have a lot of exposed veins like the hands, elbows, or wrists.)
Comment By: Dylan Wolf

Random suggestion
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
You should to make your comments feed convert line breaks to <br /> tags. Also, clicking links in the comments feed throws you into a redirect loop.

... I think I've now paid you back for griping about the small comments textbox and the fact that I didn't (and still don't, now that I think about it) have a password reset function on my blog.
Comment By: Dylan Wolf

...
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Congrats!
Comment By: Wes

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