Lesson Learned
Posted on October 17, 2008
One of the greatest lessons I learned during our infertility journey was to research, research, and research some more. I learned as much as I could about what causes infertility and then when we received our diagnosis, I researched how it would be “cured.” My husband, however, didn’t seem to learn this same lesson.
Recently he had some weird symptoms. He seemed to be concerned, but didn’t bother to do any research. He lives on his computer so why the thought never occurred to him is beyond me. Instead, he made a doctor appointment and figured he’d let a “professional” diagnosis his condition. We’ll I decided to be a little proactive and researched online using WebMd and a few other sites and I found some possible explanations. I passed along my new found insights to my hubby who then heard the same diagnosis from his doctor only two days later.
Maybe my husband wanted to hear from a doctor that everything was going to be okay. However, he wasted a lot of his time and insurance dollars to do so. I’m not saying I think you should spend all of your time in front of the computer to gain answers. However, while going through our IVF cycle I knew most everything that was going to happen (up until the point of the HSG trigger shot – and then everything went way too fast) and this provided me with a lot of peace of mind. I was more educated and comfortable with the process because I was informed.
Health literacy is a big topic among medical professionals. They play a part in it just as we do. Not all doctors/nurses have the communication skills to help their patients so it is really up to us to be as informed as possible so we can be an active participant in our medical care. This is a skill I learned (thanks to infertility) that has served me well over the past few years.
What resources do you use for information? Leave some ideas and I’ll add those to my resources list.
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Thanks for the interesting article.