Just HOW did you get through nursing school?

[scruff]

I'm just glad a test is standard practice nowadays. :-)
My Mum still tells the story about going to the Dr, when feeling ill (cos unexpectedly pregnant with me). Dr takes one look at her and tells her she's either pregnant or has a growth. She goes home in tears convinced she's dyimg of cancer. A test would have been really useful (or, ya know, more common sense and a better birds and bees lesson as a kid, but failing that, a test.)

[raudf]

I'm just glad a test is standard practice nowadays. :-)
My Mum still tells the story about going to the Dr, when feeling ill (cos unexpectedly pregnant with me). Dr takes one look at her and tells her she's either pregnant or has a growth. She goes home in tears convinced she's dyimg of cancer. A test would have been really useful (or, ya know, more common sense and a better birds and bees lesson as a kid, but failing that, a test.)

My late mother-in-law had this issue too. She was 46 when she was pregs with hubby and had noticed her period had disappeared. The Gyn back then just told her that she was likely in menopause and sent her home. It wasn't until he kicked the ashtray off her belly that she had any clue she might be pregnant. Needless to say, he was preterm and had all the wonderful issues that came with that.

All for the want of a pregnancy test.

Still... it's kinda silly to ask a lady who had a hysto to take a pregnancy test.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

Still... it's kinda silly to ask a lady who had a hysto to take a pregnancy test.

There are other things (mostly bad things) that can cause a false positive. If a woman has had a hysto and tests positive then the doctor knows immediately that something is wrong.

[wolfie]

They got me into a room with a lovely morphine/compazine drip (I tell ya, the relief of going from such intense pain to almost suddenly NOTHING is miraculous.)

Problem: I've got cotton mouth from the drugs. I can't have water until they know if I need surgery right away. Won't know if I need surgery until the cat scan is done. Can't have the cat scan until the pregnancy test comes back. Can't do the pregnancy test, because I'm dry as a bone and can't give them anything. Can't rehydrate cuz I can't have water...

Eventually they got me the form to sign swearing that if I AM pregnant, and the cat scan messes up the baby, it's not their fault. Signed it and got my treatment under way.

I'm not in the medical field, but it seems to me that there was a way to break the cycle: IV rehydration. Can anyone in the business say why that wouldn't have worked?

Also, I'm not in the legal field, but that waiver would probably not have held water (sorry, bad joke) if you had been pregnant and the CAT scan had caused problems. Why? Because you were under the influence of narcotics at the time you signed it, and the hospital knew that you were under the influence (since they were the ones who had adminstered them).

[ozcatbug]

I know one time my mother went to see a GP (not our own as he was on holiday) and the guy was insistent on giving mum a pregnancy test. I can't remember what she went to see him about, but I do remember the uproar when she got home. It seems he couldn't understand that a woman without a uterus or ovaries (she had a full hysterectomy about 15 years prior) couldn't possibly be pregnant. She even pointed it out in her medical file, but he was insistent that he could not help her if she refused to take the test. So she walked out, spoke to the receptionist and said she wanted to see a doctor that knew what he was doing. When she explained what had happened, they fitted her in with a regular GP of the surgery, and took her complaint to be passed on to our own when he got back. Needless to say that locum never worked at our doctors surgery again.

As I think of it, she was probably getting a refill of some scripts, probably for her cholesterol, which she had been on for about 5 years, and our family was in that doctors surgery about once a fortnight. Definitely under close watch by our own GP.

Also, the locum definitely wanted to do the test to make sure mum wasn't pregnant, not for any other checks. If it was for some other reason, mum wouldn't have made a fuss, just the fact this guy was insistent that he wouldn't help mum until he knew for certain if she was pregnant or not.

[Sapphire Silk]

So I'm miserable, and everyone is very nice about it, but firm. I know they can't take my word for it that if I'm pregnant, it's the baby Jesus coming, and if baby Jesus IS coming, he's not going to let a lil cat scan bother him. Eventually they got me the form to sign swearing that if I AM pregnant, and the cat scan messes up the baby, it's not their fault. Signed it and got my treatment under way. A week and two surgical procedures later, I delivered a healthy collection of pulverized stone.

They should have started an IV on you; that would have made urine very quickly, and also helped the stone to move along. Plus, it's a quick and easy route for pain medication. There really is no need to wait on a CT scan to give a small dose of pain meds. Some docs are under the mistaken idea it makes it harder for the surgeon to assess a need for actual surgery. That's a long disproven idea, but some docs still hold to it.

X rays are contraindicated in ALL stages of pregnancy. They can result in horrific birth defects. I don't blame the staff for not wanting to take the risk.

i remember back in human sexuality class, learning that some tumors actually make you pop positive on a pregnancy test.

Yes, that is a true statement. Some tumors do excrete hormones, including hCG, the hormone that makes a pregnancy test pop up positive. This happened to Queen Mary Tudor.

I'm not in the medical field, but it seems to me that there was a way to break the cycle: IV rehydration. Can anyone in the business say why that wouldn't have worked?

Also, I'm not in the legal field, but that waiver would probably not have held water (sorry, bad joke) if you had been pregnant and the CAT scan had caused problems. Why? Because you were under the influence of narcotics at the time you signed it, and the hospital knew that you were under the influence (since they were the ones who had adminstered them).

You're right on the money, wolfie. On both points.

[crazylegs]

Some docs are under the mistaken idea it makes it harder for the surgeon to assess a need for actual surgery. That's a long disproven idea, but some docs still hold to it.

It's not just docs that have this outdated view, I've even met a couple of paramedics with it too. It's one that I find abhorrent as there's no reason at all why anyone should have avoidable pain.

[CoffeeMonkey]

They should have started an IV on you;

You're right on the money, wolfie. On both points.

Oh, I had my IV fluids, and that is what they gave me my meds through. It was just taking its good old sweet time getting me to where I could give them their sample. I'm sure the stress had something to do with it.

[ArcticChicken]

X rays are contraindicated in ALL stages of pregnancy. They can result in horrific birth defects. I don't blame the staff for not wanting to take the risk.

My sister got off very lucky, her toes are misshapen, but that's it.

[Fire_on_High]

i remember back in human sexuality class, learning that some tumors actually make you pop positive on a pregnancy test. is that the one you're talking about?

Indeed it is.

[PepperElf]

My sister got off very lucky, her toes are misshapen, but that's it.

i mean i see all the warnings but never really thought about what would happen if they're ignored. yikes.

[Andara Bledin]

I suspect that the pregnancy test is a lot like the policy of asking for ID when accepting a credit card.

Sure the person being asked knows what's going on, but the person doing the asking has no way to tell that the person they're asking is really who and what they say they are, or their lying doppelganger.

^-.-^

[blas]

With my most recent ailment, which was your run of the mill bladder infection, they did a pregnancy test on me first.

I know my odds are very, very low considering I've been on nonstop BC since I was a teenager, but still, I sat there in that room just freaking the fark out until that doc came back to tell me I wasn't.

[thatcrazyredhead]

I think people should have the right to refuse whatever test or procedure they don't want to have. I hate when hospitals order every test under the sun whether it's indicated or not just to run up the bill. If I wanted a pregnancy test, I'd go to Walgreens, thankyouverymuch.

[Andara Bledin]

The problem with not doing the pregnancy test in conditions where it has a reasonable probability that the patient might be pregnant (regardless of the patient's personal history - abstinence isn't a reason to not do it - people lie; maybe not you but they don't know you from those people [as I mentioned before]), is that if you don't have a known positive or negative result, you can misdiagnose or potentially cause an abortion, both of which are not good and have the potential to open up a ton of liability, not to mention that it could also lead to the death of the patient.

^-.-^