Thursday, March 19, 2009

And you call yourself a doctor?

I have to say, I REALLY like my kids Doctor. He is fabulous. And I happily drive the 20 minutes to get there even though there are probably a hundred doctors that are closer. And it's times like last night that make me appreciate him even more.

A couple of years ago, we had a little scare with Melissa. She started having all of these bruises pop up out of nowhere. And for no aparent reason. Of course, the big C {cancer} was the first thing to come to mind. And our doctor was fantastic throughout the whole thing. Answering all of our questions and doing whatever he could to personally call the specialist and get us seen by them just as quick as was humanly possible. And all because he knew the wait would be unbearable. She wound up 'just having' (I use the term lightly because it wasn't an easy thing for her to go through, but better than cancer for sure) a blood disorder, which luckily wasn't life threatening.

She had to have weekly blood draws. And the lab would call him at midnight the night of the blood draw with the result. Which we didn't know about until much later. I always just took her in after school, which was a much busier time, so the results would come a little slower and he would get the call around midnight. However, he called one day to see if we could go in one day earlier so that he could get the results before he left for vacation, and then he explained the time that the calls come in and if it happens to be even a minute after midnight, the call would go to the doctor covering him the following day and he didn't want the call to wake up the other doctor. I told him if I would have known, I could have easily taken her in before school, and he would have the results while he was still at work. He just said that he didn't want to inconvenience us. That's what kind of doctor he is. {for the record I did start taking her in before school}

OKay, so back to the actual story of the post, Spencer's doctor appointment last night. Two nights ago, he woke up and told me he couldn't sleep because his ear was hurting. Our doctor (the one mentioned above) had given us some drops that numbs the ear when it's hurting like that so that we can at least make it through the night before we can get them seen. So, I put drops in his ears and sent him to bed. The next day, he said his ears weren't bothering him at all, so I didn't bother getting him an appointment. However, at 6 o'clock, he complained that both ears were hurting him. So I decided to take him to Kidscare that night, and that way I could still send him to school the next day.

How do I put this nicely? The doctor there, was an absolute, 100% bonafide, died in the wool creap. Talk about giving me the willies. From the minute he walked in, I wanted to ask to see his credentials. Not that he was a bad doctor, but just something about him made me sick. He kept rubbing Spencer on the back and commenting on his hair. Which I've gotten compliments on his hair before, but that was from women and known gay men.

And there are those doctors that will give you coments as to what they are seeing as they see it. Like, "Yeah, those ears are red" or "There's a little bit of redness on the tonsils" etc. But this doctor, was just well, cryptic. He'd look in Spencers ears and say, "Huh." So is that a "Huh?" as in "Huh, no redness I'm not sure why they are hurting him." Or a "Huh, they are infected, we ought to get this kid some medicine!" Then he checks Spencer's throat, say,"Ah." Okay, is that an "Ah! his throat is red, I bet it hurts." Or an "Ah, these guys are full of crap." kind of "Ah." Then he went through checking his lungs, feeling his neck, and who knows what else in silence. Then he goes and sits down over at the computer, types away, occasionally asks things like, "How long did you say his ears have been hurting him? Has he had any coughing? and Has your tummy hurt at all? {only he asked that one is some weird way that Spencer couldn't understand, so I had to interpret that one} And then FINALLY we got the verdict.

Double ear infection.

Thanks.

Now give us our medicine and let us get the H out of here. I'm just sayin.

2 comments:

Sher said...

I hate doctors. Who is your doctor that took calls at midnight? Maybe we should switch?

Lhone said...

Its good when you have your favorite doctor, but it makes the quacks seem even worse. I went to urgent care with BJ when I was supposed to be on bed rest and Blaine was in the hospital with pneumonia. Anywho, that urgent care doctor was the same way. I literally wonder if it was the same guy because he isn't working at the tanner clinic anymore. he had me STAND in the hall because he said Bj was too sick to be in the waiting room with all the other sick kids in urgent care. Then he told me croup was a made up disease. really...