Three Ring Doctor Visit

I took my children (and husband, aka “the helper”) to our bi-monthly doctor visit yesterday. Both of my sweeties seem to have some strange ailment that makes them bark like beached seals that have lost their mommies. This barking cough sounds horrid – my son’s teachers at school look at me like I’m insane when I walk him into the building sounding like that. But there is not a contagious germ in his little body – “just” inflammation in his lungs. My daughter has a chest cold she can’t kick, so she’s coughing too.

Here’s how the visit played out.

3:40 enter for 3:45 appointment. Sign in, sit down. We argue with the children about playing with the germ-infested toys in the waiting room and they get water from the Culligan dispenser, soaking the floor and themselves until our name is called.

3:45 (they are quite prompt). We are escorted to a room, where my children immediately begin destroying things.

“Help me stop them!” I yell to my husband, who is smacking his knees with the reflex hammer while wearing latex gloves on his ears. “Huh?” he asks.

3:55, following 10 minutes of sheer hell in the room, the doctor enters. My son is first and hops up on the table. As the doctor (who is a saint and miracle worker in my eyes) begins examining him, my son pulls a pen and flashlight from doc’s lab coat. Doc continues examination while 5 yo puts the stethoscope to doc’s chest. After a few minutes of negotiating, doc gets a turn using the stethoscope…

…Meanwhile my daughter is getting gum out of my purse and my husband has blown up a glove balloon.

4:10 – doc asks my husband to take our son down the hall for a chest x-ray. They leave and doc and I take a deep breath. My daughter is hoisted onto the table. After flirting and melting his heart for a few minutes, my daughter begins screaming that she wants toys just as he begins the exam. He negotiates with her with suckers and tongue depressors until he’s done checking her. He has a nurse take her for a strep-test.

4:20 – doc asks me if I’d like prescriptions for Prozac and Ambien for myself. In the quiet room, we discuss what could be going on with my son, since this is an ongoing issue. We decide to get the immunologist involved again. Doc asks me what antibiotics I feel are best for my son (yeah, it seems backwards, but he knows what we go through and respects our opinion). We talk about my daughter, which antibiotics she needs, etc. Then we start talking about my folks, how they are doing etc. He pats my shoulder and tells me that if he had a top 10 wish list, it’d be to see a smile on my face and the stress and terror out of my face. He realizes the boys aren’t back yet, so he goes hunting.

4:30 – nurse comes back with my daughter and a negative strep test. She starts coloring with the markers the nurse provided her with.

4:30 and 3 seconds – I begin dousing my daughter with isopropyl alcohol to remove stains obtained from the markers.

4:45 – doc and boys return. We look at the x-rays and decide he needs steroids, too, to reduce the inflammation in his lungs. We discuss what he will tell the immunologist and recommend…

…Meanwhile, my daughter is green and brown, her shirt is purple and my son is cleaning her off with gauze pads soaked in hand sanitizer.

5:00 – doctor completes the scripts for prescriptions after being distracted by the cuteness of my daughter and talking about transformers with my son. They start comparing their blood pressures and heart rates.

5:20 – As we’re handed suckers and depart, my daughter hugs doc and kisses his cheek, making him melt. I ask doc if he had any other patients to see, since he’d been with us since 3:45.

“No, when you guys come, we put you last and clear the rest of the schedule.”

Enough said.