My wife’s examination yesterday.
First off I have to explain that my wife is taking part in a clinical trial for a hormone drug and this is the one year anniversary check up with the study facility. I took the day off so that I could accompany my wife to the women’s wellness center in the morning. To set the scene, the facility is staffed entirely by women, for women (I wouldn’t be surprised if the janitorial staff was all women) and this is the third time I have been here with my wife (never for an exam) and there has never been another man present. After checking in and sitting in the lobby, where I got a few stares from the other patients, she was called back and I followed her. The nurse/clinical study supervisor first took my wife’s blood pressure and temperature (orally unfortunately) and then had her get up on the scales. After these preliminaries, we were escorted back to a different part of the building then where we had been before and directed into a very small exam room. I counted the tiles on the floor and it was only ten feet by five feet. There was no chair in the room so the nurse got one from another room and the only place to put it was in the corner near the right foot of the exam table. She apologized for the size but said that was the only one she had available. At the time, I didn’t mind one bit. She then asked about any changes in medication, if she noticed any changes in her voice or any other symptoms that the trial medication may be causing or if she thought the medication was doing what it was suppose to be doing. My wife replied in the negative to everything because we are pretty sure that she is on the placebo. The nurse then told my wife to go in the attached bathroom and provide a urine sample while she went and got another person to draw blood for the study. I offered to help her but was refused. Because the room was so small, the phlebotomist had to have the nurse help her exchange vials as they drew four vials from her left arm. The phlebotomist then left the room and the nurse opened the drawer on the right side of the table and took out a gown and a sheet. Handing them to my wife she told her to take everything off and put the gown on with the ties in the front and the sheet in her lap. Then she looked at me and said: “You’ll have to leave for the exam because there isn’t enough space to get around in this room.” My pulse started to race as I saw the whole purpose of my trip and taking the day off from work being crushed but I replied: “Oh, there is plenty of room.” She turned and walked out closing the door behind her. As I helped my wife get undressed, she told me not to say anything, just to leave if they wanted me to vacate the room. Now I am really beginning to panic. There is a knock at the door and then in walks the doctor. Alone. And she remains alone. She barely looks at me but greets my wife who she met for the first and only time a year ago at the beginning of the study but I wasn’t there because we didn’t realize she would get a full physical on the initial visit of the study. The doctor gets her stethoscope out and listens to my wife’s heart under her gown. Then she puts it on her back and asks her to take a few deep breaths so that she can listen to her lungs. She asks my wife to breath even deeper. Satisfied with what she heard, the doctor then asks her to lay back and put her right hand behind her head. She opened the gown and then pressed all around her right breast and nipple. After closing the gown the doctor had her put her right arm down and raise her left hand behind her head and after opening the gown she performed the same procedure on the left breast. The doctor then closed the gown back up and while telling my wife to please scoot down, she pulled the stirrups out from the end of the table and dropped the table extension. Now remember when we first entered the room, I was given a chair and the only place in this small room for it was in the corner near the end of the table. This meant that I had the best observation point for the next procedures that I have ever had. The doctor said that because my wife did not have a uterus or cervix, she did not need a pap smear this year because she had one last year. The doctor then took a medium metal speculum, inserted it into my wife and much too briefly looked around. She removed the speculum, put it in the sink in the other corner, stood up and inserted two fingers into my wife’s vagina. As she was feeling around, the doctor pressed on her pelvic region checking her ovaries which she still has. The doctor then removed her fingers and much to my dismay said: “You look fine, you can get dressed and the nurse will be right back”. No rectal exam and my wife said she didn’t do one last year either. I believe that because my wife is part of a study and not a regular patient of this doctor, she only did a cursory exam of my wife and not a full and complete one that a patient would have received. My wife is in this study for five years so I hope nothing gets missed because of this because my wife doesn’t see any other gynecologist. After the exam was over, the nurse came back in the room with an EKG machine so my wife had left her top off and the gown on. I watched as the nurse attached the leads to her legs first, then her arms then around her breasts, exposing them as little as possible. She turns the machine on for about thirty seconds and pronounces my wife healthy. She removes the leads and as she takes the machine from the room, she tells my wife she can get fully dressed. The nurse comes back in the room, asks my wife a few more study related questions, dispenses enough vials of study material, or placebo to last a year and says that she will get three phone calls checking up on her but that she doesn’t have to come back until this time next year. At that time the appointment will consist of all of the above, except the pelvic exam which is only done the following and final year. It is going to be a long two years. I wish I could add a post script to the story and report like so many of you have on this extraordinary forum that we went home and had a fantastic encounter in the bedroom but alas the purpose of the study is a drug for low sex drive so we just went shopping and then went home – to sleep. Hope you enjoyed this true event and it wasn’t too long.