Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Infertility, female unspecified

I made my appointment yesterday afternoon for my "clearing" ultrasound this evening, to see whether or not Mr. Buzzkill has shrunk into oblivion. Hopefully, if he's gone, I can start my Lupron shots next week. If not, I have to go on birth control pills and, hopefully, start the shots in two weeks. I called the RE's office this morning to let them know that I got my period, so I'm officially "in" for IVF this cycle.......

When I called the hospital to schedule the ultrasound, they asked the usual information-name, date of birth, doctor's name, insurance company and policy number. Then, the woman on the phone asked for my "diagnosis"-that is, the code that the doctor wrote down on the prescription. So, I looked on the prescription, and on the bottom it said "Dx-628.9", so I dutifully read off the numbers to her, and ended the call.

I got curious as to what the code actually meant-in another life, before I entered the teaching profession, my "career" was in health insurance, and I used to know those codes backwards and forwards-CPT coding on claims, ICD-9 codes. So, I went to the good 'ol Internet and looked it up, and got this:

ICD-9 628.9=Infertility, female unspecified.

Now, I can admit that I am a female, and yes, I am currently infertile, but "unspecified"? I know exactly what is causing my infertility-the fact that my Fallopian tubes are stuck together like a melted rubber band. It kind of threw me for a loop, being labeled like that. It's like using the broad definition of "insane", instead of saying, "no, you asshole, I'm a delusional psychotic".

Hmmm.........I don't know if I'm liking this label......how about:

628.9-Infertility, female with crappy unusable Fallopian tubes that has to go through numerous invasive and probably somewhat painful procedures to be able to have her own biological child, with no guarantee of success whatsoever.

I like that much better. At least it's honest.

Gotta go and drink my 40 ounces of water and try not to pee on myself between now and 7pm.

1 comment:

cat said...

oy labels! gotta love them no?

hope mr. buzzkill has shrunken away to nothing.