Wednesday, February 20, 2008

This Post Has Been Interrupted. . .

I had started a post talking about what a crapfest my birthday was yesterday. How Girl and the dog colluded with the vet and the doctor's office to make everything I needed to get done impossible to do. I was going to talk about my wonderful husband's half-assed attempts at making my birthday as wonderful as I make everyone else's and how they totally failed and ended with me jamming four candles in a frozen pie lighting them myself and demanding that someone sing happy birthday right now damn it!

But instead I am opting to complain about health professionals, namely those who are supposed to be caring for my daughter. Girl has had a cough on and off for about a week now. Over the weekend it got steadily worse until she stopped eating, refused everything but water, was running a high fever and wouldn’t get out of bed (my bed because there is a TV in there). Monday was a holiday, so the pediatrician was closed. At 9 a.m. on Tuesday I started calling the doctor. By 9:45, I was still only getting a busy signal (after having called every two minutes). Finally in anger and frustration I called the main number and complained. A half hour later I got called back by a secretary who took my daughter’s info and said a nurse would call me back. A half hour after that (of course when I was finally laying eyes on the vet) a nurse called me back, and after half-listening to my daughter’s symptoms, repeating them back incorrectly and ignoring my corrections, she told me it was the flu and that I didn’t need to bring her in because they couldn’t do anything for her. She said if she got worse, I could try again tomorrow.

Denied!

I respect that it is flu season and that the pediatrician’s office is getting a billion calls, but there is no reason they can’t look at my daughter, before deciding she has the flu. I’m willing to pay, they should take my money. So after listening to her lungs crackle all night, I decided that nothing was going to keep me from seeing the doctor, if I had to run in and plop my daughter on the counter and let her cough in the secretaries’ faces.

Luckily enough, I didn’t have to do that because the nurse that I got this morning was the one who administers Boy’s allergy shots every week. At first she was going to try that whole “a nurse will call you back” line, but I told her who I was and how sick Girl was and she gave me an appointment. I guess it’s not how sick your kid is, but who you know.
So we got in, and yes there were a billion kids in the waiting room, all looking as pathetic as Girl, but there are also four doctors there. We got in and our favorite nurse kept going on about how bad Girl looked (duh).

Finally our doctor came in and looked at her. She couldn’t believe how bad her throat looked (she let me take a peep it looked like Girl had been gargling nails) and listened to her breathing (“Oh! Heer lungs are soo noy-say”- She’s got a thick Russian accent). It turns out Girl has Bronchitis, Tonsillitis, and an ear infection. Take that flu-pushing nurse! I wish people would listen to me once in a while, I am surprisingly smart, it’s just no one believes me. Obviously I had no idea about the trio of diseases she had, but I sure knew it was more than the flu.

Just look at my sicky, see how pale she is. Even her stork bites which are barley visible normally, are standing out see the red marks on her eye lids and the middle of her forehead, and also, she's napping during the day which never usually happens.


Hearing her breathe is awful. It's like this:

Innnn-out crackle, crackle, crackle, Innnn-out crackle, crackle, crackle

Almost like hearing breathing on a staticy radio.

3 comments:

Annie said...

Your poor little baby! I hope she's feeling better. I have the flu.. :(

My birthday is on the first of March - which sucks, because my husband and 2 of my daughters celebrate theirs on the 4th, 12th and 13th. Every year mine somehow surprises them, then I follow it up with making theirs oh so special... it never sticks with them and mine is again... "oh crap it's mom's birthday - did she make a cake or something?"

So I now plan my own fun birthday - this year I'm going to the museum and a piano bar. I rock at birthdays!

Woodlandmama said...

Well, happy birthday a little early. I am a firm believer that your b-day is the one day you shouldn't have to help people have fun. Which also allows me to have righteous anger when they fumble.

Annie said...

Thank you. I told SH (Super Husband) that he's welcomed to join me, but I was doing my own fun thing this year. He's going with. I think this takes the pressure off since he gets pretty bogged down in the daily grind... it's rough on his imagination, I think. :)