Nursing 101

Ring my friend, I said you call Doctor Robert
Day or night he'll be there any time at all, Doctor Robert


It was a whirlwind day in Philadelphia on Friday. We left early in the morning and caught a train to University of Pennsylvania Hospital for hubby's appointment with the male hormone endocrinologist specialist, Dr. H. The last time we saw Dr. H he thought hubby may have a mild form of hypogonadism. Hubby's body essentially doesn't make enough testosterone on its own. So, he had hubby go off of all forms of testosterone replacement therapy, and we did blood tests once a month for 2 months. Additionally, we did another SA (which I have already told you showed improvement.)

So, we went into see Dr. H at the appointed time. We LOVE Dr. H. I believe he and his wife went through infertility, so he is especially kind and sensitive with the subject. First things first...hubby definitely has a mild form of hypogonadism. His testosterone levels plummeted when he went off the testosterone replacement therapy. So, he needs to be on something to keep his testosterone levels up...namely hcG which I will talk about a in a bit. Secondly, his SA showed that his count is coming back (23 million sperm, 57% motility), but he was a little low on morphology...only abour 23% were normally shaped and normal is about 30%. So, we'll have to see if it is enough for an IUI yet.

So, the doctor explained that DH will be doing hcg shots 3x week into a muscle. He got us a script and told us most pharmacies don't just carry it on the shelf, so they will special order it if we just go to a regular pharmacy. The nurse came up with a list of specialty pharmacies that may carry the drug on the shelf. One was in Trenton. So, we hopped on the train and gave the pharmacy a call. They had the drug in stock, so we gave the nurse a call to see if we could come back for our injection class. We paid for the Novarel (which isn't covered by insurance)and luckily got a call from the nurse. She said I can help you at 4 so, we took the train back down to U of P Hospital.

The nurses taught me how to reconstitute the medication which comes as a powder. They also taught me how to draw up the needle and finally where and how to inject hubby. Unfortunately, this is a medication that must be injected into a muscle. So, at this point, we're switching off butt cheeks. After class we ran and grabbed the train back home. And then we went to the minor league hockey game that we had tickets for!

I don't think sitting on the train for 1-1/2 or the stadium seats was good for the injection because hubby was SO sore. To add to the injury, we had signed up to do a scavenger hunt in New Hope on Saturday night...yup, all that walking with an already sore bum meant that hubby was very sore yesterday! We decided to take it easy, and we settled in with a movie and dinner at home!

So, what do we do from here?

-Hubby gets injections 3x week. I give injection #2 tonight. I feel TERRIBLE that he is so sore. I got some tips from a few other people who do this regularly. Hopefully that will help. I don't have any problems with the injection itself, but I feel terrible about the pain he is in. I wish I could take the injections for him!

-In 2 months, hubby goes for another blood test. We then call the doctor to see if we need to change the dosage.

-In 4 months we get another blood test and another SA. We call for the results and to see if there is any change in dosage and to see if SA has improved.

-In 6 months, we see the doctor again!

And hopefully, by that point, we'll have a bambino growing inside me.

I see my doctor on Thursday to go over the results of the SA and see if we can proceed with IUI yet. I think we might be just a bit shy of what we need, but we can talk about it at least.