I Have Cabin Fever and I Need to Vent

It’s a crapshoot, this pediatrician’s office business; in my experience, one visit to the doctor’s office has the power to precipitate subsequent visits in the following weeks. Still, I had two kids with a high fever on Tuesday morning and I was forced to take them in to the pediatrician; Chas boiled in the bed at 105.4 F the night before. Still, take one immunocompromized child to an infirmary and he’s bound to pick up another bug. Which is why this visit to the doctor’s office on Monday was not the first visit but our third in the past week.

The previous Monday, I brought a happy, robust Chas into the office for a well-child visit. We walked around the huge lobby aquarium while we waited, patted the glass, scrambled over magazines, dumped jars of otolaryngoscope tips, pocketed tongue depressors for our garden (they make good labels) and dug through the children’s books before receiving a clean bill of health among those agonizing tears of hurt and betrayal that accompany immunizations.

Three days later, Chas was drowning in phlegm, trying to cough it all upwards yet forced to swallow it back down . After dropping Ford off at a playdate, Chas and I kept driving down the road towards the doctor’s office. Presenting with nothing but a happy disposition and a chunky cough, we returned to our car after our quick visit with a prescription for an antibiotic and meds to treat acute bronchitis.

My brother John’s wedding and Easter Sunday came and went, and so busy we were with all the drinking, barbeque-feasting, egg-dying, visiting and mayhem that it was hard to notice both kids getting progressively sicker. On Monday, we were all slumped over. I tripped three times while jogging, and nearly fell over in yoga while trying to find a focal point on a bleak, gray wall. Atticus spun in circles around Ford at the lake, as my poor kid sat on the diving platform, it seemed the entire neighborhood had converged at the lake to revel around him and his blah expression. By Monday night at midnight, Chas had developed the high fever to push us near the edge, on splinters, until morning came and we could take him to the doctor.

Dragging Ford along was difficult, more so than usual. But we made it through the door of the lobby, and Ford found the nearest bench on which to lie. I suggested the nurse to pull both kid’s charts.

This technique works well with siblings: I told Ford to demonstrate for Chas how to cooperate with the doctor’s exam, even though we were at the doctor’s office “only to treat Chas.” And do you know who had the fever? Who tested positive for influenza? Ford. Chas’ results were difficult to read, but we were intructed to treat both kids for the same thing, the flu.

I think I was wiser when I used to take Ford to the Texas Department of Health & Human Services for his routine immunizations. For one, it’s cheaper. The wait is usually less than twenty minutes. The nurses are always efficient, soulful black women with impeccable technique. And the best part? No sick kids to bump into. As for the “well child” portion: who can’t measure their own child’s dimensions and follow a developmental checklist?

It makes sense: $15 for immunizations at a clinic, with a 15 minute wait
vs.
$20 copay + ($100 abx & esoteric meds+ $20 copay) + ($40 copay + $40 addition meds) and HOURS lost. Am I right?