The One-Two Punch

It was Tuesday, August 24, 2010.  I had 2 beautifully charted months of morning temps.  I had bloodwork drawn and an ultrasound performed  My husband had done his horribly embarrassing part by providing a semen sample.  There was progress!

I was in the middle of a Finance Committee Meeting at work.  We took a break to go out to look at a possible new vehicle.  On the way out the door, a volunteer grabbed me and said that my doctor was on the phone.  Of course I wanted to take the call - I'd normally take any excuse to get out of those long Finance meetings anyway.  I was sure it was just going to be a quick conversation about receiving my bloodwork, and since my office is in the other part of the building, I slipped into my boss's vacant office for privacy.

My OB/GYN identified herself on the phone and asked if I had a minute to chat.  This can't be a good sign, can it?  She quickly sped through the information and I had to ask her to to repeat it - partly because I didn't medically understand what she was saying and partly because I was in shock.

She said that she didn't really want to go into all the details over the phone, but my tests had come back and I had some problems - I definitely have Metabolic Syndrome (Right hook) and Poly Cystic Ovaries (Left uppercut).   But the real reason for her call was that my husband's sample had zero sperm (Knock Out) and she needed him to give another sample to make sure that was not a mistake.  When I asked her to repeat the information so I could write it down, she told me to not look up anything on Google (yeah, right!) because there's a lot of scary info on the internet.  She asked for my husband to give another sample as soon as possible so she could have it back by my scheduled appointment next month.  She said we would talk about all of this then.

I didn't know what it all meant, but I realized that there were problems - big problems - on both ends.  I tearfully left my boss's office and headed upstairs to mine so I could call my husband.  I couldn't get him on the phone, so I sat in my office and cried.  I realized that I was still in a meeting, so I went to the bathroom to pull myself together.  After a few minutes I went back downstairs to have the keys to the new vehicle handed to me and was told to take it for a test drive.  Did they see the tear stains making my face puffy?  I asked my staff members to go with me on the test drive - I wanted to make sure that someone was paying attention while I was driving because my mind was not with me.  For the record, I do not endorse driving a new vehicle in this condition...

We took off with me at the wheel of a new 15-passenger van while my mind was reeling.  Find the drive gear....Cysts....Red light means hit the brakes...Poly cystic, that means many cysts....These new brakes are touchy....Metabolic....What does that mean?....Push the gas pedal....Zero sperm....Stay on the right side of the road.....That has to be a mistake....What is the speed limit?....Can it be fixed?.....What does it all even mean?

I was rattled.  Someone was wrong.  Something was wrong with me.  Something was wrong with my husband.  Something was terribly wrong - so wrong that my doctor had to call me at work.   Where do we even go from here?