After the family meeting with Dr. Reed, he had the results of Mathew’s blood work taken earlier that morning. He told Mathew that he will go to the infusion center to receive his first outpatient VDC chemo. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we didn’t realize that this was the routine for these Sarcoma appointments. So Mathew was not mentally prepared for that chemo. Dr. Reed told him to come back tomorrow. “A day or two won’t make a difference,” he told us.
Dr. Reed is one of the nicest people and an excellent doctor. I know he was just trying to assure us that it was okay to delay the chemo but when he said that I thought, “It doesn’t matter.” I was still in let’s hurry, let’s push and muscle through the process to get to the other side. I hadn’t yet learned to live in the process.
So the subject of the Sperm Cryopreservation came up and that Mathew had not been able to provide a sample before his first chemo. Dr. Reed asked him if he wanted to try again since we were already in Tampa and were not going to the infusion center.
Mathew wanted to. It required us driving to downtown Tampa to the USF IVF location on Davis Island.
This brought up a previous concern.
Mathew and I had explained to Dr. Reed how Mathew had been seeing other doctors for various medical complaints and had been dismissed as being melodramatic in one case and possibly ‘just an alcoholic’ in another. This is when we were first told the story of Sarcoma. That the patient is dismissed and misdiagnosed. Dr. Reed said it may benefit to let these other doctors know what Mathew’s diagnosis was so they would be more informed in the future.
One of those doctors was near the location of the IVF clinic. In fact, when Mathew and I drove there, I already knew we needed to park in the parking garage and that it was a bit of a walk to the building. Previously, on our trips there, Mathew had been having problems with his hip locking up on him and the walk was always so difficult. So I dropped him off in front of the building and went to park the car. Upstairs Mathew went to the clinic to try again. While I was waiting I went to the other doctor's office and wrote a note to them to please give the doctor explaining Mathew’s final diagnosis.
Then I waited for Mathew. He finished and we left. He was able to give a sample this time since the extreme edema had gone down. They said they would call later and let us know if it was a viable sample for storage.
We drove home. Mathew was exhausted.
Later that afternoon I had gone to the grocery store and on the way back home my cell phone rang. It was the USF IVF clinic. They were sorry to let me know that there was no viable sperm in Mathew’s semen sample. All I could do was cry. I had no idea it would be so upsetting to me.
I just checked Mathew’s Journal to see if he wrote about this and he did not. I believe he had already gone through the emotions the first time. But Mathew was the type of person, that if a doctor said to do something a particular way or suggested something, he took it seriously.
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