My pediatrician’s office walls are beige, the pattern of the floor is squares and they have a calendar that has a dog on it still on October. It takes approximately 7 minutes for the doctor to come in and approximately 40 minutes to two days for Walmart to fill a prescription. The nurses who answer the phones now get worried if I haven’t called that day and they are thinking about putting up a parking space with a sign that says “the mother solely responsible for keeping us in business and paying our electricity bill each month, parking.”
Last weekend, I had one child who I had restricted their diet to anything that doesn’t stain on the way back up, one who emptied every Kleenex box in 2 1/2 hours flat, and one on antibiotics for an ear infection. Our goal was to enjoy a nice calm weekend in the mountains since we have been so busy we have forgotten which children are ours and if that cat in the front yard belongs to us or the neighbors.
I must admit to some anxiety at the fact that the little mountain town had no hospital, therefore no ER, since I had visited our fine Emergency establishment only days before leaving and the pediatricians office 4 times after that. But my reasoning was, they have already gotten everything known to man and even discovered new strains of monkey, pig, and squirrel viruses in my children, we should be covered. The second day there my two youngest developed strange rashes, but I took care of that by making sure they always had their clothes on and I could pretend the red pimple looking bumps didn’t exist. I couldn’t ignore, however, the two new teeth my 5 month old to the day, proudly displayed during a particularly painful nursing.
We got home and hit the floor running. It was back to school, and work and timeouts for Legos in the ears. I kept noticing that the bumps weren’t going away on my kids’ backs and legs, and when they began to turn into little sores, I gave up my three day streak with no calls to my doctor and dialed their number by heart. The guy answered the phone and asked me how my meatloaf had turned out the other night, and I asked after his grandmother and we agreed that my van was looking rather dirty on my last visit to the office, exchanged Thanksgiving recipes and travel tips.
He asks me to describe the rash in detail so I do, downplaying it as much as I dared praying that he wouldn’t send me back to the doctors office or heaven forbid Walmart for a prescription thats harder to get than getting your phone service hooked up. “Ma’am its very clear what your children have” which is code for “your an idiot, next please” “OK what is it?” I ask the highly intelligent genius on the other line. “Chickenpox” “Na uh they had their shots” I reply.
Turns out my children had the chickenpox, nurse know-it-all was right. My oldest is sulking today because he doesn’t have cool dots all over his body and I am in an exhausted trance after my midnight grocery shopping trip I made last night. (Turns out your not supposed to take your child to every known public establishment when they have the chickenpox)
But on the upside the nurse and I exchanged chickenpox stories which lead to birthday party stories which lead to thanksgiving stories. As I hung up with her I said “same place and time tomorrow.” Gotta love new friends!
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