Goodbye Summer...Hello Autumn!

Goodbye Summer…

Growing up in New England you get used to summer lasting only a few weeks. Of course, here in DC it seems like summer lasts a lot longer as temperatures can be in the 90s in April…. However, in Boston the weather in Spring may not be very Spring-like as I remember a snowstorm one year in June!

The end of summer is always sad to me. In June it seemed like there were an almost infinite number of possibilities for the coming season….then by September you are faced with all the fantastic activities that you failed to pursue. This summer was pretty good. There was the obligatory "honey-do" list which including clearing out closets of junk ("What do you mean I should throw out my high school soccer jacket?!?) but I did learn to wakeboard ("Wow Dad you look pretty good for a fat, hairy, balding, old guy!")…

The Bob Seger song "Night Moves" sums up my view of the end of summer:

I woke last night to the sound of thunder
How far off I sat and wondered
Started humming a song from 1962
Ain't it funny how the night moves
When you just don't seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves
With autumn closing in

But as we say goodbye to the heat and humidity I guess that Fall has some positive aspects to it as well. Just gotta get over the things that we didn't get to this summer and move on.

I have spent a lot of time going through the 35 mm slides that I rescued from my parents' home following my Mom's death in May. My Dad really had no place to store them and I was appointed keeper of the family memorabilia. The amazing thing about those images is that there are slides of me and my brothers and parents that I have never seen before….In today's digital world where we have instant access to thousands of photos on our iPhones, it is hard to remember what it was like to have a box of slides that contained unknown images from the past. Opening each box of slides is like an archeological expedition. Some trigger sharp memories and other register complete blanks with me.

I love this photo of me and my best friend Karma. She was an excellent dog. Rescued by my Dad (after a lot of pleading) from Camp Cody in New Hampshire she was my buddy. This photo reminds me that Fall isn't so bad after all...


What does any of this have to do with IVF and infertility? Well, not a lot I guess except that for many of our patients their view of their fertile years may be initially like my view of summer from the perspective of June. Then suddenly the years flash by and autumn seems to be closing in. But there can be good days in autumn….with or without your canine companion.

This past week I met up with a couple that had been through a lot including a tough mid trimester loss. We discussed issues of diminished ovarian reserve, and age-related aneuploidy (chromosome abnormalities). I spent some time discussing Natural Cycle IVF. Ultimately, they politely stopped me and told me that they were really more interested in hearing about donor egg IVF. They had moved beyond Summer and were prepared to embrace and love Fall. Patients are always a doctor's best teachers…

P.S. My Brother Steve is still kicking my butt in terms of Mom's Scholarship Fund.....

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Free Advice is Worth What You Pay for It....

Recently my older brother Steven and I were having a discussion about the Internet and this Blog in particular. He wondered why I spent so much time and effort responding to posts from patients all over the country and the world whom I would never meet face to face. In addition, we discussed the fact that I often referenced Mom and Dad in my posts and shared my grief over her final illness and passing at the end of May.

Honestly, the whole blog thing is out of character for me. In fact, I am a rather introverted person. I do not do well at cocktail parties and have a real problem putting names and faces together...although I pretty much have my kids down pat at this point...more or less. Yet my profession requires me to delve into the most intimate of details when working with a couple. Few issues are as difficult to discuss as those concerning reproduction and family building. Money is another one and as many of our treatments are not covered by insurance, money enters into the decision making as well!

As a 3rd generation physician I have an old-fashioned view of the doctor-patient relationship. I remember asking my Dad one time, as we drove past the Hollow restaurant on Adams Street in Quincy, MA, why we never ate there. He said that it was hard to go there because so many of his patients worked there, ate there or hung out there. I persisted and finally he agreed to take my Mom and me to dinner at the Hollow. It was like seeing the paparazzi descend on Leonardo DiCaprio! I think that he ate only about half of his meal because so many people came over to say "hi" and thank him for being such a great surgeon. That dinner made a real impression on me at the time. To this day my Dad views his identity as physician first and everything else second. Although I have attempted to develop a more balanced identity, I will admit that being a physician is very important as part of my worldview.

So why do I persist in answering post after post on this blog. And why do I drag myself over to Fairfax Hospital early in the morning to lecture to the students and residents. Well, I have always viewed teaching as being a big component of my job as a physician. As DrD states "I teach because someone taught me." As above, I lecture every week to the medical students and residents. I have served as a preceptor for Princeton pre-med students and every summer I have been a speaker at the National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine (an organization that encourages high achieving high school students to explore medicine as a career). So I use this blog as means to teach and to educate the 12 people who read this blog regularly. Along the way I try to give some insight into how I think and practice. Sometimes I share some personal history as part of a quid pro quo...."Hi I am Dr. Gordon. How often do you two have sex?" Yikes. What a crazy way to make a living...

So back to my brother Steve. We are very competitive. So competitive that we rarely play one on one games anymore. Plus I hate to beat an old guy. In any case, he was very proud of all the contributions that had been made to the Tufts Medical School Scholarship Fund in memory of my Mom by his professional associates. In particular he said "so where are your internet buddies now?"

Dear Readers, I have never asked for anything from you...until now. If you have found any part of the hundreds of posts on this blog and my answers to questions helpful then please consider a nominal $5 gift to the Tufts Medical School Scholarship Fund in honor of my Mom (Claire Braverman Gordon). Contributions are totally voluntary and I will continue to answer all questions to the best of my ability..but I really hate to lose to my big brother...

Claire Braverman Gordon Memorial Scholarship Fund
Tufts University School of Medicine
Office of Development & Alumni Relations
136 Harrison Ave.
Boston, MA 02111

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