Ultrasound Diagnosis

My blog with Tyler was pretty candid. I tried to share most of my emotions and thoughts, and for that, I am grateful to have a journal. While we don't have hard feelings, this is to record what would be helpful to us, granted, every story is different. We had our ultrasound on Friday and knew that something wasn't right. The tech kept leaving to talk with the radiologist, citing it on our "history." Danny asked very poignant questions, such as, "I don't see the brain. Can you show me the brain? Is the spine closed?" The tech skirted each question. Danny then asked, "Did you see anything abnormal that you need to talk to the radiologist about?" The tech responded, "there are some things that concern me but I can't tell you." This was difficult. We told her we would like a phone call, the anticipation was horrible for us and she promised that the radiologist would call with more information. We explained again that we had played the waiting game with Tyler and it was horrible for us. Danny reiterated that we had been told that in the past and would like a call as soon as they are able to tell us what they are concerned about. So we waited and no call came. Finally at 4PM on a Friday, I called and asked to speak with the radiologist. They were ready to transfer me and realized they had better identify my case. I tell them and explain that the radiologist was unable to talk to us at the end of the ultrasound because she was on her lunch break.

The receptionist left and returned, saying, "The radiologist is busy but they left a message with your OB who will get a hold of you with the results."

Frustrated, I sob, "We have been through the waiting game, that particular OB isn't in on Fridays and someone owes us the decency to at least tell us the body part they are looking at." I am grateful for the receptionist who tried again, put us in contact with the OB 5 minutes later, who apologetically gave us the prognosis. She told us they didn't want to give us the bad news on Friday because it might ruin our weekend. Can you believe that? I told her and am grateful to her for sharing the news, even though it was bad news. Being out of the "know" is the worst case in my opinion. First, it is not good practice to withhold information when stating and calling several times that we would appreciate to know. Second, others shouldn't judge when it is appropriate to deliver bad news. We are grateful for the weekend we had together. We cried some, we started the mourning process and have found peace and reassurance from the Lord.

Patients can read body language fairly well. Some can even read the ultrasounds like Danny who couldn't see brain matter during the scan or on the photos they gave us. Every radiologist should read this in my opinion https://plusweb.org/files/Events/Strategies%20for%20disclosing%20bad%20news%20-%20Dr.%20Woods.doc. Doctors go through so much training and yet have probably not been adequatly trained to deliver news. I am not angry, just hope that our radiologist doesn't make others who want to know results wait because they don't want to ruin their day. Well, those were my feelings about the ultrasound news. I will write more about these past couple of days and our emotions tomorrow. We are doing alright considering everything. Time for bed.