Sunday, October 11, 2009

The Infertility Book

What, wait, where did a whole month go since I last posted?


Sorry about that. Well, not that many people care, but hey. I feel that I don't really have all that much to say. I don't have a kid I can post regular updates on, and it's not like I suddenly have any great insight into how to fix infertility. I mean, I'm learning more each week about acupuncture theories and about the points, and how to tie it together into treatments, but am not yet in any position to really pull everything together in a cogent way. And there's only so many times I can post "I'm really busy" before it gets uber-tedious. But if you were to walk into the student clinic next semester with low back pain, and I was working there, I finally know what to do off the top of my head without having to go and look it up in the book. Woot.

However, I will report that I spend much of my time when I am aimlessly driving to and from the grocery store, or other humdrum activity, mentally composing the introduction to my great work - the book to end all books on infertility. Hah. If only, eh? But, just so you know, it starts off humbly detailing my abject failures in IVF, goes on to say how I met my wonderful husband (already we're in fantasy land here, because no wonderful husband is yet in sight), how I naturally conceived quickly (snort), had my amazing child at 42/43/44, then went on to discover how to reliably treat infertility patients in my busy and successful acupuncture practice (lalalalala-land). OR, in the alternative version, it starts off by saying that even though I remained an abject infertile failure, I still have something to say on the topic. Due to said fabulous and successful acupuncture practice. Bwahahaha.

My interest was piqued this week by news that my school is thisclose to starting up a PhD program in acu. And that certain students in my class (who are, ahem, not quite as brainily inclined as moi) are contemplating doing it once we have graduated from the Masters program. And I thought, hey, why are they contemplating it, and not I?? If it takes a few years to build a practice, and you are effectively experimenting on your patients during that time, to find out what really works for you, why not spend that time really experimenting, by formally conducting research and writing a thesis? Into infertility, of course. And then use said research as the basis for my aforementioned fantasy book.

I have no idea how the financing would work out, or if I really could do this, or what. But it certainly gives me something else to mentally chew over in the car. I wonder if the local IVF clinic would cut a deal with an old patient and do a joint study with me? Hmmm....