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05/06/2008
Open mouth, insert speculum...I mean foot
When you get right down to it I do feel a little bit sorry for my doctors. They've been nice people, all of them, well intentioned and caring, but let any one of them utter a single phrase that is less than exquisitely calibrated and I go all lucha libre on their competent white-coated asses.
But only in my head. In person, I am almost faultlessly courteous. (I only add "almost" because I know I've allowed myself the odd impolite guffaw here and there. It's usually been immediately after I've been asked if I'm aware of the risk of high-order multiples, or prodded for a decision about how to handle any leftover embryos. I excuse myself this lapse in manners only because I think those doctors have been in on the joke, having seen my ovaries in action. Uh, in inaction.)
Lovely people, all. If they have occasionally made a gaffe, it has usually been a mild one, kindly meant and easily forgiven. (Usually. I make an exception for the doctor I'd asked for birth control pills, who actually leaned in close and whispered, swear to God, "Just in case, or is there someone whispering in your ear?") Some of them have even been people I think I'd have liked to be friends with, like the long-ago gynecologist who looked at my piercings, regretfully told me I'd have to remove them for my laparoscopy, and then reminisced wistfully about her college days, when she'd had a mohawk and a lip ring.
Believe me, I recognize my great good luck in this and appreciate it, especially having heard some real lulus from some real bozos. A friend inside the computer pointed out Radar's "Gynecologists Say the Darnedest Things," a list of some of the creepiest things their readers have heard from a professional head tucked between their thighs. And indeed some of them are weird. But in my opinion they're nowhere near as cringeworthy as what a doctor, male, said to a friend of mine just before injecting the dye during her HSG: "Let's see if your insides are as pretty as your outside."
The comments at Jezebel about the Radar story are every bit as unsettling and, in places, hilarious: "My doctor once shouted, 'Wow, you are LUCKY! You're really tilted but in a good way. He must not have to work very hard at all!'" "I mentioned my mother was a dentist. The gyno looks up from between my legs with a disgusted look on her face and says: 'You know, I could never do that. Looking into people's filthy mouths all day long...Ugh!'" "Mine always tells me to say hi to my dad. Yeah. Awkward." "The weirdest thing I've had happen after I had an exam was for the doctor to pat me afterwards, right on my mons pubis. Like he was patting a puppy. A cute vagina puppy."
Woof.
Now I happen to think that given the, ah, emotionally charged nature of fertility treatment, plenty of you must have heard funnier, creepier, or both. Feel like sharing? If it makes you feel more relaxed, imagine me complimenting the sweet ballerina pink of your cervix as you type.
I LOVE JUSTINE ELIAS for the link.
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I don't have too many creepy comments floating up, but oddly, I had to laugh at myself today for touching up my lipgloss on the way into my HSG. Yeah. 'Cause that's where he's looking.
On my first prenatal visit, DURING my internal exam, my Doctor told his nurse assistant how good the banana he had for breakfast was. Freudian much?
My beloved, now retired, obgyn asked me the following during the first, ahem, exam he performed on me:
"So, you work out?"
I've always wondered how he knew that by looking at my cervix.
I am fairly certain this will pale in comparison to what others have heard, but here goes: I'm all set up for my "annual" and the NP asks what I do for a living. I say I am studying for the bar exam. Seconds from poking the speculum into me, she says "We in the medical profession typically don't get along with lawyers." Oh yeah, lady, I'm relaxed NOW!
Another time I was waiting to be examined and could hear the doctor out in the hall conferring with the nurse. They had lost my chart and had no idea what to do with me. Older gentleman doc comes in and asks, as if I am standing at a Blimpie counter and not butt-naked with my feet in the stirrups, "What can we do for you today, dear?" It was the set-up line from hell, and I was too nervous to come up with anything good! I have thought up a zillion brilliant comebacks since then, my favorite being, "Oh, coffee and a donut might be nice!"
My sister's gyno (a woman) was asking about her sexual partners and then asked my sister if when she had oral sex she spit or swallowed. The gyno actually said "spit or swallow." I can't really think of the medicinal value of making that distinction.
Oooh, I've heard some doozies. The most ear curling being: "alright, now close your legs dear. I can't think straight with 24-year-old vagina in my face"
After a year of fertility treatments, hubby and I were back at the clinic for our next cycle. The newby/resident doctor looked at us and asked:
So, what would you like to accomplish with this cycle?
Are you kidding me? Um . . . how about getting pregnant???? When she left the room, the two of us couldn't help but burst into laughter. Hmm, how about a little extra bloating this time? More of the dildocam, please? No, never mind, let's shoot for no follicles but all the discomfort and expense. . . :-)
I have received the "cute cervix" comment, from a female NP. It weirded me out a bit.
The worst comments I ever got were from the ER doc working on me during my most recent miscarriage. He was trying to get me into the right position for an exam (I guess I was being squeamish b/c I was bleeding) and he said, "Just scoot right to the edge of the bed, spread your legs, just like you were delivering a baby." Wrong on *SO* many levels: from the fact that I was MISCARRYING for the third time in a year, (yeah, that's right, remind me of my desparately wanted babies that I keep LOSING) to the fact that I haven't ever given birth yet (so how would I know the "proper position"?), to the fact that when I do FINALLY get to stay pregnant I have no intention of delivering in a hospital, on drugs, flat on my back like something out of the 1950s.
I wasn't too polite about that one.
When my gyno said at my annual "Well you have two children already, you might want to consider a tubal ligation." AFTER I had repeatedly told her that I had only ONE child at home (the other was adopted and is a sore subject) and I wanted another some day. Like wanting = getting, right? Hahaha! I don't know how many times I told her "ONE child YOU STUPID BITCH. And fuck me if I can't have another. Whore.
Whew. Guess I know why I don't see her anymore, huh?
I don't have many funny stories of my own (yet?), just the fact that the most recent obgyn I went to had zero knowledge about assisted reproduction, so needless to say, I won't be going to him much longer.
But shortly after I started TTC, a friend of mine went for her check-up. She isn't ttc for quite some time yet. But her new doctor said to her (I was horrified; she was mostly amused), and I quote, "Your uterus is sad. it's sad because it doesn't have a baby in it."
A friend of mine had her doc walk by her in the hall after her exam and do a double take. He then told her he didn't recognize her with her clothes on. Ugh.
My absolute favorite involved a gyn in my practice who ran in the same peripheral social circles as i did. A bunch of friends all went to the same practice, and we all privately agreed that she was absolutely clueless and went to great lengths to avoid being seen by her.
My friend lost the jackpot and the ditzy gyn ended up delivering her baby. We saw the gyn at a party about two months later.
She came up to my friend and cooed over the baby and asked if my friend was planning on having more. When my friend said no, she replied. 'OH, THANK GOD!'
My friend was mortified and to this day wonders what exactly she must've done in labor to garner that response. We still laugh about it.
Another involves a friend who was trying tea tree oil suppositories to combat a recurrent yeast infection. When the gyn came in to get a smear for the scope, she got all excited. 'Wow! This smells GOOD!' she yelled. Then she took the same out into the hallway, and my friend could hear her telling everyone 'Come smell this! It came from her vagina! It smells GOOD!'
I had the one who told me I had a very very pretty cervix.
Um, yeah.
When I was newly pregnant with my twins, my RE insisted on doing a scan at 4 1/2 weeks- not sure why. The tech looked long and hard and thought she kinda-maybe saw two sacs (we had transferred 3 embryos) but threw in all kinds of caveats about how early it was, yada, yada, yada. She then printed out the pictures and put it in my chart. Later, as I met with my RE and he looked at the pictures and I said it looked like the tech saw 2 sacs, he said very casually "well I see 5."
What an ass. Even if it was true, why the hell would you freak out your patient before you know for sure? Luckily I knew enough to just blow him off. And yeah, it turned out to be *only* two.
No funny stuff, just the midwife who seemed to be in up to her elbow during a routine exam, saying, "can't quite seem to find that cervix..."
Oh actually, I guess that is funny. (She eventually found it.)
My old Doctor didn't exactly have a gentle hand when it came to exams, some were downright brutal. There was one exam where he suddenly declared "Wow, you're a sensitive cervix kind of girl!". Gee thanks, maybe if weren't trying to yank my insides out, it wouldn't be so damned sensitive.
I went to the OB during Passover. before I left, he tells me, "Don't forget to move your bowels. very important." I Looked at him as if he's from Mars. Finally he clarifies, "Oh, you know all that matzah can cause constipation..."
During my first gyn exam, the doctor (nurse practitioner, probably) was doing the anal part of the exam, put some lube on, and said "This is cold. Some women really like the way it feels".
In fact, I'm not sure that there really should be an anal part of the exam. It totally creeped me out and I never went back to her.
I work for an OB/GYN (*sigh*) and have lots and lots of priceless gems, but two of my favorites thus far have come from our NP:
* During an exam on a very nervous 16-year-old, inserted the speculum, glanced at the girl's cervix and said, "Hey, do you have a dog?" She had been talking about her own dog all day and I guess decided to make conversation at exactly that moment; all it did, however, was cause the girl's mother to jump up out of her chair and say, "Oh my God, why? What do you see in there?!?!"
* During an in-office procedure on a lesbian, she said, "Gosh, you're awfully squirmy," to which the patient answered, "Well, honestly, I guess I'm just not used to having, you know, that much in my vagina." The NP then said, "Well, honey, I guess you two need to get bigger toys!" I actually smacked her on the arm for that one.
Honestly, she's so ditzy that it's hard to be offended by her...now, the other docs I work for...well, those are stories for another day!
Well there was the gyno who told me he was sure I'd have to have an extensive LEEP surgical procedure after gazing at my cervix, but qualified that with the fact that he "wasn't really an expert" and referred me to another doc who informed me that not only did I not require a LEEP, I didn't require any treatment at all. Thanks for ruining a month of my life worrying, a-hole!
i went for an ultrasound and the technician said i was going to have a close up on my uterus and that the ultrasound wand was going to possibly vibrate. and she said "it may vibrate, but that's just what happens...it's nothing funny going on"...as if i would assume the u/s wand became a sexy vibrator during my invasive ultrasound.
(and for the record, i did feel it vibrate slightly,...not very exciting at all)
My doctor when removing my IUD said to my DH who was with me "come take a look at her cervix." That was bizarre but he is still the best OB/GYN I have ever had.
my RE knew we are a same-sex couple and just before my first IUI, he apparently forgot during the exam, and before I left he told me to make sure we had sex for the next 2 nights. i told him we could, but that i didn't think my wife would produce any sperm. he laughed and then re-checked my chart and arranged the IUI time. silly.
My ob/gyn went to medical school with a friend of ours who is an RE in another state who did all four of our IVF cycles to date (awkward). Anyway, I always e-mailed our friend before my appointments when pregnant with twins to get his answers to my questions and to get ideas for some discussion topics. The friend told me to ask him about being tested for BV because it can cause pre-term labor. So I walk in my appointment and blurt out that I want a BV test and he says "Why do you think you have BV? You would know if it stunk in your junk." That is a direct quote! Granted, I'm sure he felt more comfortable with us because we were friends of friends, but still!
I had a doctor tell me at my first gyn exam (when I was a nervous 17 year old at Planned Parenthood... yipes!) that I was deep. That was so awkward. Never could figure out if that's a good or bad thing.
my post came up under someone elses name! eek!
i went to a podiatrist once and asked why he chose podiatry rather than med school, and do something like gynecology.
"ooh, i wouldn't want to do genecology," he said. "those things are stinky."
The strangest comment I ever received was from my obgyn, right after she performed a laparoscopy. She told me that I had 'beautiful organs', including a 'gorgeous uterus'. I decided to take it as a complement and thank her.
My OB never says anything really cringeworthy. He is always a perfect gentleman. He's so shy, he usually blushes when he has to do exams. He likes delivering babies, but if he could get out of the exam part, he would. But if I'm going to have anybody down there, he is the one. He is freaking gorgeous, and the best OB/Gyn in Austin. We do have some odd conversations during exams though, usually concerning my mother or sister. He works with my mom, and he is her doctor, and my sister's as well. He delivered both my nephews. I wind up seeing him at my mom's parties. But boy he sure is nice to look at. His technique is flawless as well.
I had my (female) cousin in the labor room with me. One of the on-calls came in to check on me and had his damn arm in up to his elbow. He started FLIRTING with my cousin (who is married, btw) and asked her out... while he was checking to see how much I was dilated!!! I sat up a little, cleared my throat, and said, "Ummm.... hello?! Can you take this up with her later?!" He shook his head like he was clearing out cobwebs and apologized. He seemed to actually forget what he was doing at the moment!
One more...
I was horizontal in the hospital for the last 21 days of my pregnancy. My OB happened to be in France when I was admitted so I saw other docs from her practice while I was in there. When I went back for my 6 week postpartum check I saw my favorite doc from that time in the hallway. (I never met him before then. He'd come and sit and have coffee with me every morning before rounds. LOVED that man.) Anyway, he looked at me kinda' funny and kept walking. I stopped him to give him a thank you gift and I guess he recognized my voice. He started proclaiming, "Oh my GOD! Look at you! You look so much better vertical than horizontal! Clean hair and makeup do wonders for you!" I wanted to die. He's still my favorite, though. He was my sanity for that very long 3 weeks. :)
My fresh-out-of-medical-school gyno said, when she did that ovary check, up to the wrist in my vagina, "Wow, it's tight in there! You're really small!"
I almost fell off the exam table, I was laughing so hard!
I once got lectured by a NP student taking my history - because I didn't use condoms. She demanded to know why, to which I replied that my husband and I felt that BCP were quite enough birth control. She told me I looked too young to be married. (I was 30 at the time, which was on my freaking chart.)
My other story is actually about me freaking out the docs. I went in for the second day of laminaria prep for a D&E (failed pregnancy 2 of 5). The gauze from day #1 had fallen out, and I had been instructed to save it and bring it in. Well, I was in the bathroom when it happened, and didn't know what to do with it when it fell out, so I found a Clinque bonus bag under the sink, and shoved the gauze in it.
I presented the bag to the resident and attending at the appointment, and they looked at each other, confused. I said "WHAT?! You told me to save it! Maybe if I write to Clinique about this, I'll get free stuff."
They burst out laughing, then asked if they could bring in the med students to watch. Apparently I am entertaining.
An OB resident assisted with the delivery of my second child and she did the most painful pelvic exams I've ever experienced. She kept apologizing that her fingers were just too short.
Two months later, I was on an airport shuttle bus and noticed someone staring at me and my kids. She finally came up to me just as we were getting off the bus and said "Did you deliver your baby at X hospital? I think I delivered her!" Without thinking, I blurted out, very loudly, "Oh RIGHT! The one with the REALLY short fingers." I had just enough time to see her flush very deep red before I stepped off the bus at my terminal.
Wow.
Well, it pales, but when I had my first UTI I went back after the dx and rx to ask the doc when I could have, ah, relations, again. He said, "Well, I'd wait until you want to."
In fairness, I suppose it must be said that that is good, if hopefully unneeded, advice.
My weird gyno comment came from a doc who wasn't treating me, thank God. Anyway, I was a rising college junior and working in the PR office at my local hospital, writing articles for a community magazine. I was working on an article about the new birthing center at the hospital, and had to interview all five (small town) of the local gynos. So, I asked each of them what was their favorite part of being an OB/GYN? The first four of them said things like, "Delivering babies," or "caring for women through all phases of life," but the ultra creepy gyno, who had a handlebar mustache no less, acted as if I should have inferred his answer because, um, why else would a creepy guy become a gynecologist? "Doing exams is the best part" he said, and started adding, "Looking at women..." but stopped before adding "down there" or "naked." And he was laughing the whole time. While being interviewed by a 20-year-old college student. I was so glad he wasn't my doctor, and sorry I couldn't include that tidbit in the article.
Some interesting stories to read among these comments!
Well, since I have been assured by my RE on multiple occasions that my uterus is beautiful, my well, uncomfortable moment took place at the allergist.
Piggy backing off of the "gynos say the darndest thing" link...
I didn't know allergists did breast exams!!
When I finally had the opportunity to give birth I had to do a c-section due to pre-e. My daughter was born and I got to see her for a millisecond. They whisked her off to the nursery and the anesthesiologist started to let the good stuff flow in my iv. It was surreal having two docs - my actual ob on the right and the gyn resident on the left - talking and working over you.
At one point my doc yelled at the resident, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!" That was confidence boosting. He then proceeded to show her that the way she was suturing me was incorrect and that the part she had done needed to be redone. I know the anesthesiologist kept turning up the juice....but I heard the whole thing and the side where the resident was (the left) the scar has a bump compared to the right side.
At my 6 week post-partum check, the ob asked if I had resumed "relations" with my husband. When I laughed and said no, he said, "I thought I saw spiderwebs up there."
Not a story per se, but my best friend's GYN is named "Dr. Lick" we laugh about it every time she goes to the doctor.
This was not a comment, but was an awkward interaction nonetheless. The first time I met my new gyno, whom I had heard was insanely nice and caring, and a great listener (didn't rush the visit), he walked in with his zipper undone, and quite open. It was alarming because he was so disarmingly earnest, and probably a few years younger than I. We talked for fifteen minutes before the exam began and all I could think about was how mortified he would be later, and if I should say something (no way). Or maybe this was some kind of new patient hazing ritual he performed on everyone to weed out the weak or humorless? I decided to go back, and on the second visit, to my relief, he was all zipped up...
Unfortunatly mine doesn't really qualify as funny. I had a new (to me) OB deliver my first child and after 5 freaking hours of pushing he looked down and said "Oh my God!" (hoffified) when she was born. Needless to say, though exhausted I freaked out. Turns out she was fine - but the umbilical cord had been wrapped around her neck three times (to no ill result) and he just freaked and started clamping/cutting/et cetera (no ceremonial cut for her).
So... The first thing I mentioned to the two doctors that delivered #2 and 3 was that if they said anything even close to that that I would kill them myself.
Saw the NP at my Dr's office for a yeast infection a few weeks ago, and she decided to do an exam. Asked all the nosy questions before hand, had me get gowned, and then came back in for the exam.
She just gets started rooting around down there, and asks "any history of STD's?" I about stood up in the stirrups when I yelled "Why? What do you see?"
She popped her head above the sheet and said "nothing, why?" She had just forgotten to ask when she was getting my history.
Ironic thing? My husband had spent the week before in Mexico for work, and a billion bad scenarios of him getting freaky in Tijuana went thru my mind when she asked that question.
During IUI's, my RE would caress my foot and calf while pearched before my vagina, waiting for the nurse to deliver the swimmers. Made me uneasy, yes, but he was cute so all is forgiven.
During my HSG the doctor made an off remark about how professional woman are more groomed down yonder.
After my laporoscopy, the anesthesiologist (who unintentionally knocked me out on just the initial happy juice - DID NOT review my weight on the chart, or so it would seem), leaned over me AFTER I'D JUST HAD SURGERY and whispered confidently, "I think the reason you can't get pregnant is lack of body fat." Hmmmm I could have taken that two ways, but AFTER I'D JUST HAD SURGERY. Before I could slur out something profound and profane, my husband reassured him, "Oh she EATS!" with a big eye roll and head nod for emphasis.
Pigs. All of them.
Nothing to contribute here, but, my dog, I cannot BELIEVE some of these! Creepy/inappropriate city!
This isn't really a gyno story but it is gyno related.
Last year I had my 3rd miscarriage. I was sent for a D&C to complete it. I guess the nurse didn't look at my chart before doing the admitting interview, because when I said my last period was 3 months ago she said "Why so long?"
"Uh... I've... been pregnant," I said.
"Oh," she said, "how old is your child?"
Bewildered by her apparent ignorance of the 9-month gestation period, I explained that the baby had died. She said, "Oh, how terrible. Was this your first pregnancy?"
"No, my third."
"Oh, how many children do you have?"
"NONE."
Finally I started to cry. She tried to cheer me up with the story of her next door neighbour's nephew's wife who had 3 miscarriages and then went on to have a successful pregnancy. "And a good thing too," she concluded, "because she was almost 40!" Guess how old I was at the time?...
(BTW, a few months later I got pregnant a fourth time - at almost 41 - and that one took.)
When I was pregnant my midwife was giving me a vaginal exam when she said she could feel that I was constipated and suggested some remedies for that. I was sooo embarrassed that she could tell! Ever since then I have been really paranoid about when my last BM was before I go to the doctors.
On a first date with a gynecologist, he looked at my hips admiringly and said: "You could drive a Mack truck through that pelvis!"
In the event, even though that is a very high compliment for an OB/GYN, he was wrong, which makes me wonder whether he was a better lover than doctor.
After my fifth baby was born (over 23 years ago now, and over 40 years after my first!)I went for my post-natal 6 week check-up. As he was getting ready to do the internal exam, the doctor asked if everything had 'gone back to normal down there'. I told him I thought so, and he replied, "Oh, come on! After five children it must be like the Blackwall Tunnel down there!" He then stuck two finger in and said, "Try to grip my fingers." So I did. He had the grace to blush, and say, "Oh!"
Eh ... that sounded like my fifth child was born 40 years after my first! :-/ What I meant to say was it is NOW over 40 years .... Dang, you know what I meant (blush) Sorry!