To the doctor we go again..

First off, the reason that they're haven't been any blogs posted from me in a while: blogspot hates me.  It's as simple as that.  Truly.  It has nothing to do with the strange fact that my son is humming the JAWS theme (though he's never seen the movie) in his room as I try to focus and type.  It has nothing to do with me going crazy at all, no it doesn't and I don't like your implications.  Blogspot simply hates me.  I type out a great blog, I go to hit publish, the whole thing freezes up and then the computer starts giggling this insane giggle that only Stephen King could dream up, and it gets up and runs away.  And, I'm left sitting there all innocent without a blog post anymore.  So, there.  Now you know.  I blog now at great risk to my own health and warfare (no, not a typo).  You're welcome.  I love you.

So, do you remember Shannon's 5 Year Doctor check up visit?  No?  Why not?  I kinda do!  Ok, I'll forgive you.  You can click on that snazzy link and it'll take you to the blog post about it. 

Tristan had his 5 Year Doctor check up visit yesterday.  Here is how my day went:

Wake up and decide this isn't one of my days.  And, since I have nowhere to be, I'm allowed to have a lazy bummy day, so I don't take a shower.

Remember at 11am that we have an appt at noon. Tristan, who has been congested for a few days (thank you Allergy Gods) has been given cough/cold syrup.


Remember that 2 years ago, at Shannon's 5 year check up, he barfed EVERYWHERE. Try not to mention that memory to the kids.

Put on a nicer shirt and attempt to do something with my hair.  Ok - so here's a fun tidbit for you: a lot of people think that having dreads means you completely neglect your hair.  Like you forget it's there all together.  This couldn't be further from the truth, at least for me.  And, if you haven't been to take your kids to the doctor's lately, you are missing out on the well-known, absolute fact that you MUST look presentable because, no matter how sick your child is or isn't, they WILL judge you.  It's a bunch of women ... DUH! 

My dreads and I argue some, but they finally agree to go up in some form of a bun.  The Hokie colored ones though decide they're going to really stand out in weird ways today.  Fine.  Just fine.

Get kids into the car.  Attempt to get self into the car.  Thanks to a long upper-body and short arms, I only have 3 fingers' width of room between the top of my head and the top of the car when my hair is down.  If my hair is up, I wind up driving all GANGSTA style, slung off to the side trying to fit in the car.  -- How in the world did women with beehives EVER drive anywhere????  I need a carriage and someone to drive me around. 

Get there early, wait till ...shortly after 12 to be seen - go figure.

They do urine sample & finger prick blood test first. Tristan is fine. He doesn't get upset till he feels (I'm guessing) that first heartbeat in his finger. (You know what I'm talking about) - At that point he has an upset, eyes welling "uh-oh" reaction.

Nurse calls us back into the room so we don't have to wait. She takes Tristan off to do the eye & hearing exam.

She returns with Tristan who is COVERED in vomit. I mean, it was even on the back of his pants. Since I didn't see it happen, all I can imagine is the Excorsist. Nurse seems stunned and unsure of what to do. She hands me a gown and I work on stripping him down.

Meantime, I call my mother to please run by my house, grab him a change of clothes and GET HERE NOW!

He announces he needs to go to the bathroom. While on toilet he starts puking again, then it shoots out the other end. (Sorry - TMI, I know). I try to clean up as best I can.

Get him cleaned up, washed off, and etc. Get gown back on. He is clammy and his face is literally green.

Nurse keeps trying to say he has a stomach bug. I keep trying to tell her that his older brother had a very similar reaction and that their father doesn't do very well at the sight of blood either.

I remind Beazley of Justin's fainting spell during a very similar check-up when I get the chance.

Mom arrives. All seems ok. Then Shannon announces HE has to go to the bathroom, and it's obvious HE is starting to cry.

Beazley looks at me, wide-eyed, in a "WTH?" wonder.

I go to the bathroom with Shannon. Have to get him to admit to being upset and crying. He says that he doesn't like getting shots. I remind him that HE isn't getting any shots today. He says he doesn't like Tristan getting shots. I leave him to finish.

While he's still in the bathroom we agree that my mother will go ahead and leave, taking Shannon with her. This is good because by the time Shannon gets back he pretty much hollers that he wants to leave NOW. - they leave.

Now there is the usual examination part.  I win the "WORST MOTHER EVER" award for not only all that has happened but also because Tristan is wearing underwear that is oddly stained all over (of course, right?), and socks that aren't of equal shades of whiteness - one is bright white the other is slightly pink. 

Tristan gets his 3 shots. At doctor's "orders" we lay him down for it and keep him down. Obviously, he cries about the shots *mega duh*

After a good long while I'm able to get him dressed. He keeps trying to kinda hyperventilate.

Tristan has been known to, when he's VERY upset, quit breathing kinda, go blue, and pass out. So ... this is my current fear.

We walk out to the car, I think the rain and cool air will do him good but he seems to be getting weaker. I finally wind up carrying him to the car.

I get him in the car. I attempt to get myself into the car. Remember what I said above about the dreads.  It's like a friggin' cartoon episode, me trying to get into the car with my big hair and little arms.  And it's raining.

We're driving down Main St., towards my mother's house, in the rain, and I glance to the back seat. Tristan is slumped over. I try to not go into full panic mode.

Turns out he was just asleep. Get all of us home. Everyone goes down for naps. I have two stories due. Two I, of course, hadn't written yet. I send my editor a letter asking just how late I can get them in. My nerves are shot.

Who the hell hid my valium today?

Why is my hair so big?

How is it fair that they inherit this reaction from Justin but I end up being the one to get to deal with puke and nurses who seem to be amazed that kids may puke at the doctors' office and capable of offering little other than a gown, a trash bag (at my request, they didn't think of that on their own) for his puke covered clothes, and then they run around spraying things with Febreeze???

Tristan sleeps for a while, or at least rests for a long while. This is good. No more vomiting, no passing out.

I get my articles written.

I find my valium.

I forget about my big hair since the ceilings here are even taller.

I make a good healthy, nourishing dinner. Tristan has a fit because he'd rather have a sandwich. We convince him to break up pretzels in the soup/pasta dinner. No (adult) tempers are lost.

I debate having one more kid just to make sure that Justin has to take said prospective kid to their 5 year check up.

Of course, Murphy's Law, that prospective kid would be fine.

I hate that prospective kid. Damn him/her.

I make Justin stay on bulldog butt wiping duty. This doesn't make me feel much better, but it's better than nothing.

The one bulldog who wasn't given gas-x pills proceeds to sit there, butt near my face, and fart all night.

Damn Murphy's Law.
 
Later I ponder if I can squeeze the bulldogs and make them fart in Justin's face. It would make a nice weapon and I feel like he deserves some suffering.


Cartoon-esque revenge theories are being hatched in my mind. I also kinda want to bitch-slap the nurses. Or at least do a SNL "REALLY?!?!?" clip about them. I mean, REALLY!?!?!?!, you're shocked and unprepared when kids vomit at the doctor's office?!!?!? REALLY!?!?!??! Who could ever imagine and forsee such events!!! REALLY!?!?!?
 
 
So .... now you know why we try to avoid trips to the doctor's office as much as try to avoid ... umm .. the plague?

To the Doctor!

Tristan woke up in the middle of the night last night claiming his ear hurt. We gave him some Tylenol and hoped he had just slept on it wrong. My gut told me this wasn't the case, but I remained hopeful. Sure enough, his ear hurt worse this morning. So I made the dreaded call to the doctor's office to get him an appointment.

We got there and waited. Luckily there weren't that many kids there and I think we only had to wait 4 hours instead of the usual 4 days. Or so the kids seemed to think of the wait.
We got into the examining room and waited. The kids read books and complained. At the same time .. they're multi-talented like that.


Our beloved doctor finally came in. He was the pediatrician to both myself and Justin along with our siblings and my cousins. I don't always agree with him but I trust him.
He began looking Tristan over. It was an ear infection. Left ear was nasty and right ear was getting it too. There could have been no infection yesterday morning, this was a quick acting, nasty little bug. He patted Tristan on the belly and announced that he "has the crud."
He looked at me and asked if he'd been sick. I told him he'd had a cold and was taking a while to fight it completely off. He's like me, things can linger. He looked at me and asked how long he'd had it.
"I dunno, a while?"
"How long?"
"A couple of weeks?"

I hate that look. I really hate that look. It's that look that says "What kind of mother are you that you let your child be sick for weeks and didn't bring him to the doctor?!?" ... Um .. because he wasn't really sick the whole time??
That look says he doesn't believe me. I hate that look.

About the time that Tristan was 7 months old he had gotten a bad diaper rash which meant I had to go to the doctor.
It was a bad day from the beginning. He had peed through his cloth diaper the night before and I had bathed him clean in the sink. Apparently though I didn't get his head well enough and by the end of the day he .. well, smelled like a pee-head.
The appointment was late in the day, meaning we had a long, long wait. He was hungry, not feeling too happy, and whiny ~ it was the international melt-down hour. My pee-head son was NOT his happy-go-lucky self.

The nurse called us back and we went into the examining room. I had to undress him down to his diaper to be weighed and measured. I took him to the scales. Pee-head sat there a little more content. It was then the nurse noticed the scabby-like marks on his back.
"WHAT ARE THESE!?!?"
"Bite marks??"
~umm .. I think she about fell over at this point. I'm pretty certain her mouth did hit the floor and her eyes popped out of her skull~
"Look, he has an older brother who is 2 1/2. He keeps biting him. We're working on getting him to stop" I tried reassuring her and explaining the true situation to her.
"Oh. Yea, I had a biter too." Now she was talking to me like the mom she truly was.

So we go back into the room and wait for the doctor. Not our beloved doctor, another doc we'd never seen who was on call and seeing people who were making the last minute appointments.
He came in and looked the diaper rash over.
"How long has he had the rash?"
"Well, he's had the rash for a while, but it started getting worse so I brought him in."
"How long has he had it??"
"I dunno, a week or two??"
There was that damn look again.
And my kid had healing bite marks on his back.
And he had Pee-Head.
And, as the doctor soon told me, he had a "regular" diaper rash that had then gotten infected. He gave me a prescription for some cream. I went out of there, my little Pee-Head tightly in my arms, as quickly as I could. I was certain they would call Social Services.

I hate those damn looks. I don't like running to the doctor immediately over every little thing. Which means we give things the unthinkable .. TIME to heal on their own (or with a little a little over the counter medicine, etc). But, when I finally take him into the doc, they give me that damn look. I also NEVER know the EXACT moment my kids get sick. Sorry, but I don't keep that stuff jotted down.

I hate that damn look.

A trip to the doctor

This is Shannon, our oldest. Shannon turned 5 in January so that meant a trip to the doctor for shots. Shannon is our wild-man (though I'm not doubting Tristan's abilities). He's our loud one, our full-steam-ahead, running-on-all-cylinders, drama-queen kid. Though he pushes me past limits I knew I ever had, every day it seems, I love his personality!! It does make trying to raise him a challenge, but it is one I look forward to (I really do .. am I telling you this or trying to convince myself??) .. especially since I know he has more of my personality than Justin's.
Before I tell you the tale of our latest doctor's visit, I need to fill you in on a couple more things. You now know how Shannon is (to some degree), and you probably have a good idea of who I am too (although I'm never quite what you expect). We see Dr. Beazley. He has consistently been chosen as one of the best (if not the best) pediatricians in the Valley, and he was Justin's and my pediatrician when we were younger .. along with our siblings' and my cousins'. We chose him because I knew I wouldn't likely care for anyone else, and deep down we do trust him .. we've seen the results. HOWEVER, we DON'T always agree with him! And .. for the record .. on this trip, I WAS VERY PMSy. (Gotta own up to it).
Now I can begin my story.
We check in at the front desk and I'm handed a clipboard with several pink sheets of paper and told "fill it out & give it to the nurse." I thought this was odd since we've been seeing Dr. Beazley for so long, but whatever. It started off with familial health history questions (history of ___ - check father, mother, siblings). Pretty standard questions .. though I must note that I LOVE the standard question asking if any of us has a history of death or death as an infant. YEA.
I'm filling out the form as the boys are hanging out, and then I flip the page and get to questions that start making me question this whole process. Questions like what type of house do we live in, what type of heating do we have .... ok ... I can still see where these could be used for health reasons. But then there was the question "What was the highest level of education" for the mother and father. HELLO!! Talk about some SERIOUS invasion of privacy!!
The nurse calls us back and I ask her about this. Here is where PMS comes into play and I had to tell her that I wasn't trying to jump down her throat about this, but I wanted to know how these questions (there were more, I just can't remember them now .. blocked them out maybe?) were anyone's business ... how did they conceivably pertain the the health of my child?? I filled out the form anyway, but I'm still grumbly about it.
Now we're in the room and we're waiting. Shannon has been weighed and had his height measured, along with his hearing and vision checked. Beazley comes in. Shannon, our "talks to anyone" kid becomes shy and won't talk. Beazley asks questions to Shannon like "what street do you live on?" Shannon answers "Sesame Street." - GREAT - ok ----- This is a running joke of sorts, one that the doctor isn't in on, and is writing down on his little pad that Shannon thinks he lives on Sesame Street. I prod Shannon to tell him where he really lives and he answers correctly. Also, even though Shannon normally finds it hysterical to call us by our names .. when asked by the doctor what our names are he says "mommy" and "daddy" ... and won't tell the doctor his full name (which not only does he know, but he can write out!) --- more scribbling on the pad from the doctor.
I then get the lecture about how I can't let Shannon out of my sight because he WILL wander off and the implication that there is a good chance Shannon won't be able to tell someone where he lives. I was told to NOT let him play alone even in our backyard!!! Times they have changed.
Next, I get the lecture about Vitamin D. How studies are finding kids lacking in this and how taking a multi-vitamin for it can help prevent not colon cancer and diabetes (apparently a good, healthy diet is less important than a multi-vitamin .. or at least not the first common sense answer when it comes to diabetes). I tell the doctor (YES, I told him this) how we only drink raw milk. I should be happy child services wasn't called then and there. I got told how "raw milk doesn't contain Vitamin D, that's why they fortify the milk with it." ---- Nice to know you're paying attention doc, when milk is pasteurized it loses up to 66% of the natural Vitamin D - THAT is why they fortify PASTUERIZED milk with it!!! http://www.westonaprice.org/transition/dairy.html --- I didn't argue with the doc here, I know better. He once tried to tell me, when Shannon was really little, how he wasn't really sold on organic food and the benefits of that too. Again, another moment I should probably be happy he didn't call Social Services then and there.
Next up: the shots. The first one was in his left deltoid. Later that evening, during bath time, we would notice a raised, red area the size of a dollar around the injection site. The next two were in his right arm, in his tricep .. an area pretty tender and sensitive on almost all of us. One of the two shots I saw go in and she put the ENTIRE needle in his arm, ALL THE WAY up to the syringe!!! She admitted that one hurt, as he screamed in pain and cried. Ya think?!?!?! GEEZ LADY!
When we had first gotten in there the nurse assumed we were there for the kindergarten check-up. I told her we were homeschooling, so he didn't need those tests/shots. Beazley told me that he still wanted to do them because of testing for anemia and some other stuff. He also told me how homeschooling was a good thing, but it is really a lot of work on the mother, so I needed to beware and be ready. Because, yea, raising kids in general isn't hard work at all, it's a breeze! GRUMBLE!!!!
So we're sent to the bathroom so Shannon can pee in the cup. Shannon doesn't know yet how to "shut it off" when the cup is full, much less hold the cup, so I lucked out with a over-filled cup and a pee soaked hand. They also didn't give us the type of cup that you just screw the lid onto, but a vial I had to pour the pee into. Tristan had the fortunate luck of standing between the toilet and sink, and getting pee dribbled (by me) onto his shirt. Sorry buddy.
Now we head off to the lab. Not only am I carrying the vial of pee, but also the 20 some big stickers we've been givin along with the two pencils they gave Shannon, and the paperwork they gave me ... because naturally, I didn't bring a purse or bag. I give the pee to the nurse and we sit down to wait. The room is NOT empty. Tristan screams about stickers. The nurse calls us into the lab - Shannon has to have his finger pricked. I try to get him to look at me, he doesn't. He screams and cries (drama queen, remember?), freaking out about the nurse squeezing blood from his finger. By now even the nurse is trying to convince him it doesn't hurt. We head back to sit down, Shannon crying and telling me between sobs and sniffles how "now I'm sick!". I tell him he isn't sick. What does he do??? He sits down in the seat and makes himself throw up!! (Yes, he can do that!) And, I'm not talking a little spittle here. The kid throws up BIG TIME: all over his shirt, his pants, into his shoes (of course we wore our faux-fur lined crocs today), on the chair, on the floor!!!!!
I rush back into the lab and ask for a towel as my child has just gotten sick. I'm handed ... three little paper towels. Back and forth I start going, trying to clean up the mess as much as possible; praying Tristan stays put; trying to get Shannon to calm down; spotting out of the corner of my eyes everyone watching and covering their noses .. it did smell! Finally the nurse asks me if they need to call house-keeping. YES!! I clean up everything and Shannon as best I can, I place the trash can in front of the seat and let the nurse know this so she can tell house-keeping. I'm handed the results of the lab-work and sent back across the hall to where we originally were.
The nurse who saw us come back apparently couldn't notice Shannon was covered in puke, and told us to have a seat. I hissed at Shannon to not sit down, and we all stood. Yes, I was sympathetic to my wounded child .... I'm not that mean and cold-hearted ... but he is a drama queen and he will get himself wound up and make it all that much worse (which he did). I'm not happy.
Beazley comes out, we walk over to him. Shannon moves to hop up into a nurse's chair, I hiss at him to not to. I get "the look" from Beazley. I have to explain to Dr. Beazley that Shannon is covered in PUKE!!!!!! Seriously man, I'm trying to keep your nurses' chairs from having PUKE on them!! C'mon!! Results were perfect, we're good to go (as much as possible anyway).
We head out to the car. It had been in the mid- to upper-40's that day, and since we weren't going to be outside long I hadn't seen a need to wear coats. We all had on long sleeve shirts, pants, and faux-fur lined crocs (well, mine were Birks). I get Tristan into his car seat and buckled in, making Shannon wait by his door on the other side of the car. I went around to Shannon and made him start stripping off his pants, as luckily, I had a spare pair in the car. Of course the parking lot wasn't empty, lots of people got to see me, the cold-hearted bitch of a mom that I am, and my poor shivering, 1/2 naked kid. Unfortunately for Shannon, the pants were a size 4, and so he looked like he was wearing capri pants -- we didn't even try to force them to button, I just got him buckled into his seat, tossed the dirty pants on the floor board, and slammed the door.
I was pissed, I had been insulted, offended, accused of stuff, talked down to, shot dirty looks, peed on, and so on. Ok, maybe I'm reading into it some here, but this is how it felt. AND I was PMSy and had a migraine.
We got home, I got the kids into clean clothes and fed lunch. Then I called Justin. He hadn't gone with me .... it was all HIS FAULT!!!!!! AHA!
And so that pretty much ends the story of our well-visit (HA!!) trip to the doctor. Shannon, wounded, shot, abused, covered in puke, drama queen; Tristan, well-behaved for the most part, but in the wrong place at the wrong time and so, sprinkled with pee; Me, PMSy, a migraine, pissed off, cold-hearted mom with apparently ZERO sympathy for my poor son; and Justin, who got to catch most of the blame for not going with me and making me deal with this hellish trip all by myself.