you know your life continues down surreal (or perhaps pointless) lane when you fall asleep reading the IUI instructions included in the REI¹ welcome packet interspersed with reading the instructions to the one-step ovulation predictor kit, even though you’ve been using the clear blue easy fertility monitor for nearly a year now.

and it’s further evidence of insanity when you find yourself telling your husband that HE needs to figure out whether frozen or fresh sperm are preferable for IUI, given the results of his semen analysis.

TMI? probably. but i’ve just finished my cycle of clomid for the month and my hormones are raging and my moods are swinging and it’s getting to the point where i’m just gonna steal the first baby that comes to my door on halloween.

no, i’m kidding. i’ll take the second one. the first ones are always the greediest.
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¹ for those not in the know, REI in this context is not the recreation sports equipment store, but rather Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility.

i’m about to start a digression here about whether or not having had 3 miscarriages qualifies as infertility, but that’s just going to be a long, drawn-out mess and i have things to do today. like sit by pool and talk about adoption with my aunt. so toodles!

so, the interesting thing about repeat miscarriages, it seems, is that there’s not a whole lot to be done if there isn’t some sort of chromosomal or clotting factor issue. when there is such an issue (about a third of the time) there are medical and surgical interventions that can happen. the other two thirds? the medical advice is to keep on truckin’.

or really, keep on fuckin’.

the RE visit today wasn’t too helpful; the resident (who had done a rotation on the psych ward when g was the attending – she recognized him and started to stammer a bit) was scattered and unnecessarily timid. i don’t think a case history should be taken with “um, so you don’t have a history of…?” questions, but maybe that’s just my survey instrument training talking. after 50 minutes of that (and a brief conversation with her attending), she sent us off to the lab, where they promptly relieved me of what felt like half my blood volume. going vasovagal was a distinct possibility. i’d post a photo of the needle site, but you’d just nod at the lovely bruise.

the upshot of all this is that if i don’t get pregnant this cycle, i get to do the clomid challenge next cycle (not as fun as it sounds, but it radically increases the chances of a multiple pregnancy) and have a hysterosalpingogram (i’ll spare the details, mostly because i don’t want to think about them right now – but it’s about as unpleasant as it sounds and will require the heavy painkiller artillery before and after).

w00t.

on tuesday, one of my docs asked me how bad this whole process would have to get before i gave up. i looked at him, and said “hunh? i’ve decided to get pregnant. until someone tells me i’m categorically unable to carry a pregnancy to term, i’m going to do whatever’s necessary. “hard” and “give up” do not compute.”

so, we begin again. with the knowledge now that i’ve a 50% chance of miscarrying – unless the tests tell us otherwise.

in other news, i’m sleeping in a lab tonight to see if the docs can determine a cause of my insomnia.

laloca: a one-woman effort to keep the DC-area medical establishment humming.

first: i’ve discovered that the content of the internet can be described as an ever-decreasing fractal. it goes something like this:

• most of the content of the internet is porn.
• of the portion of the internet content that is not porn, a proportion equal to (porn)/(total content) is taken up by questionable online vendors.
• of the portion of the internet content that is neither porn nor questionable online vendors, a proportion equal to (porn)/(total content) is stupid emo shit.
• of the portion that is not porn, questionable online vendors, or stupid emo shit, a proportion equal to (porn)/(total content) is devoted to anthropomorphizing cute animals.
• of the portion that is not porn, questionable online vendors, stupid emo shit, or cute animals, a proportion equal to (porn)/(total content) is absorbed by religious and/or political zealotry.

and so on, and so forth.¹ if i could find my notes from my undergrad 4th dimensional math class (primary text: flatland), i could probably even graph it out in something other than an ever-narrowing pie chart.

2. nothing gets my goat like a badly-written survey instrument. if you’re going to ask about sexual behavior and accept the fact that non-monogamy exists, you might want to ensure that your followup questions aren’t written with a monogamy bias so strong that it’s impossible for a multi-partnered person to answer them in a way that won’t give you crap data. yes, i’m looking at you, university of indiana PhD candidate research.²

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¹ these categories are not exhaustive, nor are they necessarily in the right order. i’m open to suggestions.
² honestly, if that’s the type of instrument design that gets approved, i’m glad i never went further in public health academia than an MPH. it seems there’s more rigorous design and pre-testing in the commercial world, where millions of dollars of marketing and r&d money are assigned on the basis of research findings.

in the next few months, i am going to have a crash course in the work done by reproductive endocrinologists.

funny, i never thought that this would be my life. but miscarriage #3 seems to be concluded, so we’ll see what happens. i may or may not blog about this, or anything else much. the urge to stick my virtual head in the virtual sand is strong.

(and it just struck me that when i created the category “women’s reproductive health” i never thought i’d be talking about me…)

i love me some medicoliterary geek humor.

i suppose, since i have the post editor open and all, that i should take this moment to apologize for the dearth of posts in recent months. i know i’m letting my loyal reading audience of 3 down, and i’m sorry. it’s just a bit difficult to tread water and type at the same time.

i had signed up for NaBloPoMo with the best of intentions. a post a day for a month? i could handle that. even with some light holiday travel, i could post from my phone. i’m not working right now, so what better way to exercise my photography and writing muscles?

who was i kidding. this is 2009. if there’s been a consistent theme this year, it’s been this: make a plan, have it fucked with. it’s amazing we even got to mexico (the asshattery of acapulco notwithstanding), all things considered.

so what happened to my plans this month? well, i learned two new medical terms, of course. (i hate learning new medical terms. “fetal bradycardia” was the first one of the year, and it’s been a constant suck since then.) these are the new two:

giant cell tumor of the tendon sheath; and
pigmented villonodular synovitis

there’s a school of thought that they’re really the same thing, just in different sites. from a treatment point of view, it doesn’t matter which one it is. neither is malignant; they’re both benign aggressive soft tissue tumors.

and i have one or the other in my right foot. it’s about the size of a golf ball. it wasn’t always so big, and only recently has it begun to cause any pain. by now, though, it has enveloped the two peroneus tendons and eaten up part of the cuboid bone (the x-ray and MRI look amazingly like a mouse has been at it). because of this, it needs to be removed before it causes major permanent structural damage. it needs to be removed NOW, because i’m still trying to get knocked up, and i’m not about to undergo general anaesthesia while newly preggers – again (we saw how well that worked out back in april). or, for that matter, hugely preggers (i know i’m getting ahead of myself, but i’m still hopeful). and since it’s an aggressive tumor, if it’s not removed, it’s going to keep growing, getting more painful, and doing more damage to my dainty (okay, size 9 – but it’s long and elegant at the moment) foot. even with the tumor removed, there’s a 45% chance it will grow back. grmpf. the upshot is that the week after thanksgiving (and two days before my birthday, no less – those plans certainly got screwed too), i’m going back under the knife.

that’s right. i’m headed for four surgeries in oh-nine. one for each quarter. yay me.

so i’ve been too grumpy to blog daily, and for the last week i’ve been gimpy due to pain and swelling following an exuberant core biopsy that angrified the tumor and the foot, which cut in on photography, and my plans to start working out again, and my plans to look for a job.

and there you go. the universe is mocking me. doing a damn good job of it, too.

[this is a recovered post from the great data disappearance of 2009. links, comments, and other html may have been lost permanently.]

(before launching into my outraged diatribe, i’m going to stipulate that safe abortion access is an integral part of not only women’s reproductive health, but our ability to exercise self-determination. many other individuals have written more coherently and persuasively on the subject than i could, so i’ll leave any interested readers to the googles for the specifics.)

with that out of the way, on to the diatribe.

in a press release celebrating the 240-194 approval of his odious abortion restriction amendment, bart stupak exulted,

Now that those voices have been heard we must move forward and pass a bill that provides quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

he’s also said, “All Americans deserve the right to quality, affordable health care coverage.”

all americans? really? apparently stupak doesn’t think that abortion access has any place in women’s “quality” or “affordable” reproductive health care. his amendment (couched in “this just [just! - ed] continues the hyde amendment’s prohibitions on the use of federal funds for abortion” logic) will have the practical effect of denying abortions to any women participating in the health insurance exchange.

how? right off the bat, it prohibits exchange-participating plans that offer abortion coverage from accepting any federally-subsidized customers (estimated at 80% of exchange participants)¹.

oh, but wait. apparently women will be allowed to purchase separate “abortion riders.” that’s great, provided a) women will think to insure against unintended pregnancies (or better yet, pregnancies with complications necessitating an abortion either due to risks to the woman’s health, or abnormalities with the fetus); and b) that there are insurance companies willing to offer those riders in the first place.

and it’s b) that’s really the kicker. via NARAL,

According to the respected National Women’s Law Center, the five states that require a separate rider for abortion coverage, there is no evidence that plans offer these riders.²

so. we’ve got a health reform plan from the house that is intended to create universal coverage by requiring individuals to acquire health care coverage through a national exchange³. and that exchange will effectively reduce women’s access to abortion services. fantastic.

i really, really hate washington right now. a meteor could demolish the entire hill, and i’d only mourn the architecture. okay, i’d feel sad for the families of the members of congress, but the representatives? not so much.

particularly not bart stupak or nancy pelosi, who facilitated the introduction of stupak’s amendment. because of those two (insert foul adjective of choice here… oh, hey… choice!)s, women are going to remain second-class citizens when it comes to health care.

(and finally, because i’m pissed off at the pro-choice democrats who folded and voted for the bill with stupak’s amendment: there’s a niggling voice in the back of my head trying to convince me that perfect should not be the enemy of the good, and that this reform bill is better than none. to that voice i say – there are far fewer anti-choice democrats than pro-choice ones in the house. if the pro-choice dems couldn’t get the antis in line and force a vote without restricting abortion access, they’re a useless political machine. if they’re going to allow abortion to be a political football, they should play the damn game to win.)

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¹ how ironic that the democrats have brought us our own version of the mexico city policy.
² i’d link directly to the national women’s law center on this, but i can’t find anything on point on their website.
³ it will also expand medicaid access, but that doesn’t help low-income women access abortion. see the hyde amendment.

[this is a recovered post from the great data disappearance of 2009. links, comments, and other html may have been lost permanently.]

things lately haven’t been terribly conducive to generating my own content, and there’s a good chance i’ll get around to writing about that in the next few days. in the meantime, i’m just going to share this. i’m not a fan of this style of rock & roll, but the message is spot on.

oh, and another interesting link for the rest of the research and health geeks out there: the spread of health behaviors in the framingham heart study social network (LINK TO http://www.hcp.med.harvard.edu/node/2316). researchers mining the data found a totally overlooked nugget: the information to create a complete map of the social connections of the participants, which allowed them to track the dissemination of both disease (of the generally non-contagious variety) and behavior through friend and family networks. the moral of the story – there may be hidden gems in your data. look at it with a fresh eye, if you can.

[this is a recovered post from the great data disappearance of 2009. links, comments, and other html may have been lost permanently.]

i have no words to describe how disturbing i find this – high-heeled crib shoes:

i think i am doubly disturbed because before coming across that site, i was perusing the latest in tendon-atrophying, back-swaying, toe-pinching torture devices from christian louboutin. taken in isolation, i find the louboutin shoes visually interesting – the colors and shapes are striking, and there’s an obvious attention to both design detail and craftsmanship. but they’re essentially fetish wear.

louboutin’s shoes are the most sexualized examples of high heels – a very sexualized item of clothing to begin with – that i’ve seen in a long while. and that’s fine: if adult women want to strap into these and conjure up thoughts of everything from sexual prey to sexual dominants in the eyes of their beholders, so be it. and it’s not just louboutin’s shoes – most high heeled shoes do this, to greater or lesser degrees. but why on earth would we want to transfer those connotations to infants? that’s not “heelarious,” that’s pathological.

recovered comments:
5 Responses a “stockholm syndrome”

1. alejna Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:40 pm

Ugh. That makes me sad. Maybe there are baby fishnets available to go with them.

(My mother-in-law, always the bargain hunter, actually picked up some toddler fishnet stockings on sale for Phoebe. They have stayed in the packaging.)

2. Holly Says:
July 6th, 2009 at 12:19 am

You pretty much nailed that, all of it.

Eeeeeewwwwwww…

3. Cold Spaghetti » Blog Archive » July Just Posts for a Just World Says:
August 7th, 2009 at 2:41 am

[...] laloca of baggage carousel 4 with stockholm syndrome [...]

4. The July Just Posts « collecting tokens Says:
August 7th, 2009 at 2:42 am

[...] laloca of baggage carousel 4 with stockholm syndrome [...]

5. Eva Says:
August 8th, 2009 at 9:27 pm

People are stupid. That’s the only explanation I can think of.

the straight porn industry has managed to fool itself into believing that regular HIV testing by an industry-funded clinic – rather than mandatory condom use – is good enough to keep its performers protected from disease.

as they recently found out, it might be better than no testing at all, but it doesn’t hold a candle to condoms. the companies are blaming the condom-optional policy on the performers.

a much better rundown of the situation – and the stupidity that led to it – is over at sugarbank.

in related news, i see that lifestyles is now marketing a polyisoprene condom. there’s a review (6 months old) over at the condomunity.