Dearest Dr. #$#@%$,
Maybe it's been a long time since your children were young. Maybe you've just seen SO many sick children that you have grown weary of it all and don't feel like you need to have compassion. Maybe you just need to work on that bedside manner. WHO KNOWS? But, when I bring in my son for a persistent cough that's gone on for over a month (with no other symptoms...) and just want to make sure he doesn't have asthma or allergies, please don't stop the medical analysis of my son as soon as the answer to your "is your child up to date on his vaccines?" question is "no.".
Twenty minutes is way too long to try to convince me of what a bad mother I am because he's behind. Let's not jump straight to "he may have whooping cough" just because he's behind on his vaccinations. Let's not freak out/weary the mother when she is already prone to freak outs and weariness. Oh, and by the way, I am aware of what whooping cough is and know that if I thought it was that I would not have waited a MONTH. I am not THAT BAD of a mother.
Thank you for telling me the CDC is concerned about me. And, I'm sorry for my snottiness when I said to you - 20 minutes after your talk began, when you STILL had not checked my son - "SO, what does all this have to do with why I'm here TODAY?".
Sincerely,
A Weary Mother
Dear Nurse Whatever Your Name Is,
Thank you for the phone call concerning my son's chest x-ray. Thank you for waiting exactly until 5:00 PM (and making sure to tell me I couldn't call you back because the phones were going off when you hung up) to call with his results. Thank you for wording it this way: "Nothing to worry about TONIGHT, but make sure and call me at 9:00 in the morning" so that I was SURE to freak out ALL NIGHT LONG and not sleep at all. Especially when you just told me all was CLEAR. I'm sorry for being snotty to you when I told you never to say that to a mother ever again.
Sincerely,
A mother who is now praying for forgiveness for all her snottiness.
I don't think you were snotty at all. The nurses seem to not care how they act toward everyone. Hannah has asthma and her only symptom was coughing
ReplyDeleteTabatha
So sorry Amy! We've had some very similar experiences just b/c we aren't "up to date" on our vaccines.
ReplyDeleteThey really should consider that moms who make those choices are very likely to have done some research and would know what whooping cough would look and sound like!
On a side note, I had the persistent annoying cough thing for over a month too and finally found a chiropractor to try. I thought it couldn't hurt. She helped me so much!! Not just with adjustments, but she knew tons of natural, herbal, homeopathic, etc things to try that really helped.
Just a thought :)
FYI, whooping cough has become a major problem in our country because of all the illegal aliens who have NOT BEEN vaccinated. We have a teenage boy in our church...he coughs until he passes out or throws up, etc. He has had whooping cough since August.. Maybe we should all get revacinnated... Prayers for Jack. :-)
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