An Ode to Pediatricians. Or a Rant. Either Way.

Whew.  What a rough two weeks here at the Rocking Casa.  First I lost my voice, then an FPIES reaction, then the stomach bug from hell (and another minor FPIES reaction, but it’s all over now).

Stick a fork in me; I’m done!

So the question came to my mind: where exactly did we GET a stomach bug?

We’re shut-ins, after all.  The Geek barely interacts with (maybe) two to three people in his work – there are benefits to being a computer dude, after all, and tele-Skype-emailing is one of them.  So…who had the cooties?

In my humble opinion, we got it from the ‘new’ pediatrician we were trying out.  Wednesday two weeks ago, I was concerned about Mr. Happy’s poop.  He’d dropped down to only pooping three times in nine days.  That was a drastic drop off for him, but I wasn’t terribly concerned yet.  Still, the Geek said “Why don’t you take him to the doctor?  In fact, why don’t you take him to the new doctor we want to see?”

We have been thinking of changing pediatricians for a while now.  We like our pediatrician.  She’s a very nice lady and she seriously likes kiddos.  But for the last 6 or 7 months, her office has been changing quite a bit.  There’s been an increase in staff, a turnover in staff, and we didn’t really know anyone there anymore.  It felt impersonal and topsy-turvy, when it once was warm and friendly.

Furthermore, she missed the diagnosis of pneumonia in Mr. Happy back in July, and had we listened to her advice instead of our guts, he very well could have died.  That’s scary stuff.

Even with all of that, the biggest reason we wanted to shop around was because she doesn’t have hospital privileges at the hospital we will be taking our kids to should they need an ER visit in the future.  And we hate the hospital she does have privileges at.

In July, the pediatricans on call at the hospital were from a local pediatric group, and we really liked their attentiveness, thoroughness, and the fact that they were willing to say “you’ll get better care elsewhere – off with you!” instead of having the big ego so many doctors seem to have and insisting they could handle anything.  So, that seemed a good place to start for a new pediatrician.

I had called to get the kids appointments with these new pediatricians many moons ago.  They are booked up MONTHS in advance.  I should have just made the appointments then, but I didn’t.

Well, Wednesday two weeks ago, with my voice still not working, the Geek got on the phone and managed to get us a squeeze in appointment for Thursday morning.  Rock on, babe!

So Thursday morning, I had myself and the two kids in the parking lot of the office at 8:23 a.m. for an 8:30 a.m. appointment.  Pretty good, considering it’s a 35 minute drive and – dude, it was 8:30 in the freaking morning!

I got Mr. Happy in the Ergo, got my purse/diaper bag, got Mr. Charm out of his car seat and made sure he had his sippy cup and his toy trains that he carries EVERYWHERE with him nowadays, and off we went.

I couldn’t find the door.

Seriously.  I’m not stupid, but I didn’t see an entrance anywhere from the parking lot.

So, we started walking, thinking it was around the other side of the building.

We walked ALL the way around the building, and turns out?  The architect decided to be cute and placed the entrance door at a weird angle where it just flat blends in to the front of the building, so if you don’t know it’s there, or drive up at just the right angle to see it, well, it’s a doorless building!

So we get inside, and I croak out in my muted voice “Mr. Happy”, and the girl starts looking for our appointment.  While she looks, I get my credit card and insurance card out.  Not my first rodeo, peeps.

She can’t seem to find us.  She makes me repeat our sons name.  She looks here.  She looks there.  She finally goes “Oh!  You’re in with Urgent Care.  They’re over in our Urgent Care building.  If you go outside, cross the parking lot, go around the building, it’s on the other side and you’ll see the entrance right there.”

It’s a good thing I was literally speechless, or I would have chewed her out.  What, you couldn’t have told us this crap when we made the appointment??  Ugh.

So, back into the wallet go the insurance and credit card, back into the purse goes the wallet, I drag a fighting Mr. Charm away from the TV screens, we cross the parking lot, go around a building, and sure enough, there’s the entrance.

Go through the door, repeat the whole process, and now we’re nearly 20 minutes late.

Thanks, guys.

We got checked in, finally, and were quickly taken back in to an exam room.  They measured and weighed him (27 inches long, 18.13 pounds) and said the doctor would be in shortly.

We waited.  We waited.  Then we waited some more.

FINALLY, after almost an hour, the doctor came in.  The first thing he said was “Sorry you had to wait so long. We usually run right on time, but I guess you were a little late and we missed our ‘window’ to see you right away.  I had to see the patients that were on time first.”

Um, I would NOT have been late if you guys didn’t have an ignoramus for an architect and have two different facilities but not bother to tell new patients that over the phone!

So, yeah, my feathers were ruffled a bit from our first meeting.

By the time we had sat and talked about Mr. Happy and Mr. Charm for a while, though, I was feeling much better about everything.  He’s a good doctor, I think, and has a good bedside manner.  I felt comfortable there.

He commented that Mr. Happy looks incredibly healthy, especially considering his condition, and that I must be doing an exceptional job regarding his well-being to have him looking so good.

Yeah, Mama likes a little “atta-girl” every now and then.

Then it got sticky; he asked if we vaccinate.  I told him that we would LOVE to vaccinate, but that so far, Mr. Happy has only gotten the Hep B at birth and the Hib at 4 months old, because his system is so out of whack I can’t, in good conscience, add anything else to the mix.  Plus, he reacted mildly to the Hib, and the DTAP has casein in it – another word for dairy – which he is deathly allergic to.  So I can’t get him the whooping cough vaccine unless they can find one that doesn’t have milk in it.

The doctor proceeded to tell me that “…we’ve had children in our practice die from whooping cough, so we’re a straight vaccination clinic.  If you can’t vaccinate, we’ll need a note from a specialist telling us that vaccines are contra-indicated due to his condition.”

Well, that’s just great.  So I have to get in touch with my GI, who is almost impossible to reach, and get him to write a letter to a pediatrician saying vaccines are contra-indicated – which, by the way, they are NOT strictly contra-indicated for FPIES, according to medical people.

But Mama’s of FPIES kids know that vaccines affect your immune system, your immune system is directly linked to your intestinal health, FPIES is an intolerance that comes from intestinal dysfunction, ERGO…don’t give vaccines when your child is reacting, take it easy and do one shot at a time, and maybe skip some shots so your kiddo can, you know, try a new food instead of getting a shot – because you can only do one thing at a time.  And kids kind of – silly, isn’t it? – like to EAT.

So getting that note for the ped. might be a little tricky.

Then I have to get in touch with our allergist to have her write a letter saying that – Captain Obvious here – a child with a dairy allergy CANNOT HAVE a vaccine with freaking dairy in it!!

<facepalm>

Even better, the doc then goes on to explain that they won’t see us if we continue to be patients of our current pediatrician because “…lots of people try to use us for our after-hours clinic but we don’t want people to take their kids to another doctor for an ear infection at 9:00 a.m., but bring their kids to us at 9:00 p.m., when we’d rather be home with our families.”

Well, the after-hours clinic was a large part of why the Geek and I wanted to use this pediatricians office, and we completely agree with not abusing their generosity in having the clinic open for after hours.  But I had already told the doctor that we were switching pediatricians, and why we were switching, so why is he lecturing me about this??

While all this lecturing was going on, I was paying attention to the doctor and not giving the kids 100% attention.  Mr. Happy used that opportunity to start eating the paper on the exam table.  I don’t think he ate much of it, but he got some in his tummy and gummed/drooled on quite a bit more.  I removed the paper and got it away from him. (This and the board book that night are what, I believe, gave him the bloody diaper the next morning.)

Mr. Charm, meanwhile, was driving his trains all over the exam room, crawling under the table, over the table, touching the doorknobs, knocking posters off the wall, playing with everything he could touch.  You know, normal stuff for him.  But almost certainly where he picked up the stomach bug.

In the end, the doctor said most kiddos start pooping differently at 6-7 months old; they’ll drop from pooping with every diaper change to sometimes only going once a week – or even less!

But, if I was concerned, here were some things I could try.  They all were either medications I already know are unsafe, or are things I’m hesitant to try (like molasses or brown sugar – hello FructMal!).

Again, I wasn’t all that concerned about the pooping, but we wanted to be ‘official patients’ of this clinic because that’s the only way to use their after hours clinic, and this way they’ll have previous knowledge of the kiddos in case we wind up in the ER again.  So, I ignored his advice on the pooping and said “laters!” and off we went.

The Geek and I discussed it, and we’re not sure the vaccine thing is going to work out for us.  We shelved the decision for the moment, did our evening routine, and went to bed.

Then Friday morning and the bloody poop.

It was enough to make us drop everything and start actively trying to book appointments with the specialists in Atlanta that we would like to see our kids.

I managed to get us appointments with the allergist and the GI, and it looks like January will see me and the kiddos Georgia bound!

I had to hustle off the phone because we had an appointment scheduled for that afternoon for Mr. Happy’s 6 month well-baby exam.  We went to our current pediatrician (the one that doesn’t have hospital privileges at our hospital) and you know what?  I really do like it there.

Her office is going through growing pains, because she’s trying to expand her office (almost certainly because of the Obamacare stuff heading her way, but that’s another rant) to make it easier on her and more profitable.  I already mentioned that I didn’t really like the changeover, but now that I’m getting to know the new people, it’s starting to feel more like it always did.

Because of spending so much time on the phone trying to get appointments, I actually WAS late to this appointment.  They didn’t say a word.  Just said “Hi!”

They didn’t bat an eye when I said no to the vaccines.  Just reminded me to call them the first moment I felt comfortable giving Mr. Happy his shots.  They took a look at his butt, commiserated with how awful it looked, and prescribed an ointment to help it heal.

They checked him out from head to toe, pronounced him ‘right on track’ and healthy looking, said they’d be happy to give us a referral to any specialists we needed, told me (again) how awesome a job I’m doing with Mr. Happy, gave him a book (she always gives kids a book at their well-baby checkups – isn’t that awesome?) and even complimented me on my weight loss.

It sounds sort of Norman Rockwell, doesn’t it?

When I got home, I told the Geek that I wasn’t sure we needed to switch doctors.  Bottom line, NO pediatrician is going to be able to help us with the FPIES/FructMal/allergy stuff.  Pediatricians are for runny noses, sprained ankles, well-baby exams, colds, flus, ear infections, and other run-of-the-mill kid stuff.

They’re not specialists.  They’re not for FPIES or allergies or FructMal.

A good pediatrician will learn at least enough about any special conditions your child has to make sure they give good care (not prescribing ‘bad’ drugs for your kiddo, etc.) but they don’t need to provide care FOR that condition.

Which, frankly, our doctor has done since the beginning.

She did miss the pneumonia, but honestly?  I knew at 10 in the morning that Something Was Wrong – Seriously.  I KNEW we would wind up in the hospital.  I PACKED for the hospital before we even left.  But…for fear of coming across as an over-reacting Mama, I went ahead and went to the pediatricians office anyway.

I knew better.  I knew I should have gone straight to the ER.  She should never have been in the position to examine him in that situation.

So.

Old doctor:
CONS – made one misdiagnosis that was a big deal; doesn’t have practicing privileges at our hospital.
PROS – everything else

New doctor:
PROS – after hours clinic; practicing privileges at our hospital.
CONS – unhelpful receptionists; gonna give us crap about vaccinations; gave us the stomach bug from hell (when we’ve never picked up so much as a sniffle from our old pediatrician in over two years)

Yeah.  I’m thinking we’ll stay with our old doctor.  And just listen to our guts better.

Anyone else picked up a funky bug from the doctors office?  Has anyone else ever noticed that “privileges” looks like a fake word after you’ve written it a few times?