Monday, May 21, 2007

The lost art of written communication

Why is it that there are a very large number of otherwise well-educated men in this world who think that it is perfectly acceptable for them never to have learned to type, and that short, terse emails with no capitalization is a perfectly proper means of communication?

I'm talking about my RE at Big New Clinic, Dr. S., in particular at this moment. Now, I should say first of all that it is wonderful that he responds to emails, and responds quickly. My last RE didn't do that at all. He didn't like being at the beck and call of the computer, so his nurses would return emails sporadically on his behalf. If at all. So, actually getting a quick response from the actual doctor is great, and lovely, and all that.

But the quality of said emails is rather lacking.

I emailed him to let him know that my hep C tests were totally clear. Foolishly I mentioned that we were retesting in a month, just to be doubly sure. I asked what to do about the cyst. He emailed back a short, pithy reply which essentially said that we won't do anything until my doctor clears me.

There he goes with the "clearance" obsession. I'm sorry, what about "I do not have hepatitis C" do you not understand? Isn't that clearance enough? His emails just leave me screaming for more. For more understanding, more clarification, more punctuation, for eff's sake. Just more.

Of course, in actuality, I can't cycle until July/August anyway because of Big New Clinic's annoying lab closures, so I have to sit out a month. Again. I had to sit out March for the same reason. So it doesn't matter if we decide on cycling again after my next hep C test. And I will ask my internist to fax Dr. S. something with the magic words in it. But I would like to keep an eye on that cyst, because I don't want to finally get the approval to cycle again and then find out that the cyst has swelled even more. And then have to sit out yet more time for a cyst removal or something. Because at that rate, it's going to rapidly get towards a year since my last cycle, and that's frankly ridiculous.

So I'm going to march down to my local RE's office and just get the darn ultrasound done at next cycle day 2. And screw Dr. S. and his "clearance" obsession. The u/s could be tomorrow or Wednesday, depending if today's spotting turns into anything more meaningful.

So there. I'm taking charge. If I want someone to stick a dildocam where the sun don't shine, by gum I'm going to get them to do it.

And thank you all so much for your comments, by the way! I'm so happy that you're happy for me! Gives me the warm fuzzies all over. However, it pains me that other internets got bad news when I got such good news and I never usually acknowledge that pain here because it always makes me uneasy to do so, especially as most of said internets don't know me from Adam. But I'm thinking of you all - people with bad news, people with good news, and people just waiting for something to happen, damn it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

sheesh! what is WITH that RE???

But I guess it is good that at least the avenue is open for quick communication. Maybe once he knocked you up you can send him a Harbrace or something...

xo

lady macleod said...

good. taking some action on your own will make you more in control, that always has a good effect.