Trip to the Hospital (again)

It started innocently enough. Runny nose, 2 days, not even a full on "eight hankies in an hour" affair.

Then the wheezing started, oh oh.

I started giving him the puffer (Ventolin, for the medically inclined) but wasn't sure about the Steroid. Mark McGwire ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_McGwire )obviously would've put his kid on 'em ASAP. But Tanner would have only got muscles in his spit, so where's the use in that?

Called the GP "come in tomorrow at 11:30" she ordered.

Got there at 11:30, trainee doctor came in at 11:50.

Now this wouldn't seem out of the ordinairy to most folks but I arrived there 7 minutes late once and was grilled by the receptionist.

"Did you have trouble finding parking?" She asked

"I'm sorry" I replied. She obviously interpreted this as a sign of weakness and came at me again.

"Why are you late?" I gestured towards the obviously sick 17 month old in my arms.

"The doctor is very busy I might have to reschedule"

That got me.

"well, yesterday he couldn't breathe so you might want to ask the doctor about that, you short, fat, miserable little cow"

Okay I didn't say the last bit, but that self important 22 year old did piss me off.

Anyway, the Trainee asked a few questions, I told her about the 2 previous occurrences including the 2 days in hospital. She put her stethoscope on his back, sat down and said "well what do you want from us?"

I thought of asking her if she'd ever been a receptionist but didn't.

I told her I wanted to make sure it was okay to give him the puffer and should I be giving him the steroids?

She said she would go and get the "real" doctor (my words).

Dr T. came in, Stethoscoped him and turned to the trainee and said "he's really wheezy, would you like to listen again?"

That was Wednesday.

"Come back and see me on Monday."

Monday, same symptoms, she sent us to emergency. DOH!

I won't go into the full details, We were there for 4 hours or so. It wasn't too bad.

The good news is there was a nurse there that explained the whole situation to me. She explained how her son had the same thing (lots of kids do) she told me that she starts him on the "roids" at the first sign of a runny nose because they take some time to kick in. Awesome.

Great nurse, but she'd have been a crappy receptionist.