Girl Stuff. You've Been Warned!

I have PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome).  Normally, other than when I'm trying to get pregnant, it doesn't bother me too much.  It's a little hard to lose weight, sometimes I get the odd hair growth where I don't want it to be, but mostly, I have anovulation and don't get periods for months, sometimes even a year.  This year I've been experiencing some more not so fun complications, like one-two month long, heavy menstrual cycles.  They are painful, annoying, interfere with my every day life, and just no fun.  I am not really a fan of hormonal birth control, especially after having to try so hard to get pregnant.  They work to "fix" this issue with PCOS though. To regulate and control things. 

During a six week long period a few months ago, I went in to see what we could do, figuring it would most likely be to put me on birth control.  We decided to go with Seasonique and it worked, until the 8th week of pills when the bleeding came back again.  You're supposed to expect breakthrough bleeding with these pills, but it got progressively heavier and more and more painful to the point that having anything touching my abdomen was excruciating.  This went on for nearly three weeks when, I passed a mass of grey tissue, slightly marbled with red vein looking lines.  It was a few inches long, an inch or so wide, plump, rubbery, and just not something I'd ever seen before in all my years of dealing with these girly issues.  Large, heavy blood clots, yes, I'm used to those, but they're always dark red.  I decided that was enough, the Seasonique obviously wasn't working for me, and I  was worried that it might be a more serious issue with this tissue passing.  I saved the tissue just in case. 

So, I called my doctor's office to see what they thought.  If what I was experiencing with the tissue and the bleeding was okay, and could we maybe just switch pills to one that I knew worked better for me.  They insisted that I needed to come in for an appointment the next day, but my doctor was out of the office for the week.  Would I mind seeing another doctor?  No, not really, if you think I need to be seen and not wait, that's fine.  I wasn't looking forward to it, because it was a female PCOS issue, and I knew my doctor was the only doctor in the practice who does GYN care and has had experience with PCOS.

I go in the next day, and the doctor spends half of the appointment reading about PCOS and which birth controls are best.  He prescribes me a pill I've taken in the past, and told him works for me.  At first he tells me to skip the first week of pills.  Then a minute later he says to take two pills the first day, and two pills the second day, then one pill a day.  So, I clarify, skip one week, and then two pills for two days?  No, he says, he had changed his mind.  Start from the beginning of the pack and take two pills for two days.  Okay. 

He asks to see the tissue.  I show it to him and he barely glances at it.  He says "Oh, that's just a blood clot."  Hmm.  It does look pinkish red, because you know, it came out in a flow of blood and I didn't rinse it.  But as far as I can tell (I know, with all of my medical expertise, haha), it's not a blood clot.  Perhaps just a large clump of uterine lining?  I don't know.  As long as it's normal, whatever, I don't care.  I'd just never seen it before and wanted to make sure.

So he hands me my checkout papers, and I go to put my coat on and leave.  I turn the corner from leaving his exam room and the doctor is standing in the hall talking to some nurses.  I hear "And it was just a blood clot!" and they all laughed.  I looked right at him, he looked right at me, and turned around and walked away.  Now, considering he just saw me and looked at my "blood clot" (I still don't think it was one) I can't imagine he was speaking about anyone else. 

When I got home, my husband pulled up the office's complaint form.  This was Friday.  It's now Monday, and I just got a call from him a little while ago...  I didn't answer.  He left a message apologizing and stating he didn't mean to make me feel disrespected or to be unprofessional.  Nice, right?  Well, then he says he wants to explain what happened, and that he will call back again to speak with me.

What is there to explain?!  I keep trying to think of a scenario where he wasn't making fun of me, but with what I saw and heard, and how when he saw me he just had that split second deer-in-headlights look, and turned around and walked away without another word.  He knew I'd heard him. 

I don't know if I want to take his next call or not.  I don't really want to speak to him, and I certainly won't be seen by him again for any issues at all.  It really sucks though because I like *my* doctor.  And I'm one of those people who get's really nervous going to a new doctor and it's hard for me to find one I'm comfortable with, and *my* doctor is amazing.  She's my PCP, but she also handles my GYN and PCOS stuff, so it's so convenient and she's just a great doctor.  Talks to you, explains things, LISTENS, all the stuff a good doctor does.  I don't want to just quit going to this practice, because I really like her.  I just don't want to run into this guy again.