Tuesday, May 17, 2005

First Attack Since the Blog Began - And a Small Rant

So I took little B to the pediatrician today.

I don't know why -- they never hear anything, even when he has pneumonia! I love our peds, but with the kid's tiny little bronchioles, it seems to take well-trained peds. pulmonologist to determine how serious the attacks are.

It's stupid, but since our regular (wonderful and stunningly fabulous) pulmonologist is on maternity leave, I feel like I'm bothering the other doctors when I call.

It's the height of parental stupidty, I know. But I think we all do it. Every parent, facing the "great unknown" of children's health, feels vulnerable and intimidated when calling doctors. We're paranoid, they're innundated with the time-consuming calls of hypochondriac moms. They're brusque; we feel foolish, hypersensitive and ever-so-slightly abused. I don't blame the doctors and nurses - although I probably should. They should try to be a little more understanding.

I don't page my physicians very often; I'm not an alarmist. But I'm so often dismissed by the doctors at the respiratory group who don't know me well. They're all wonderful doctors, and I trust all of them. But they don't know me, and they don't know my son.

And that's why I went to the pediatrician first. I knew I wouldn't get exactly the care I needed, but I knew I'd be listened to, that every symptom would be taken into account, and everything treated. And if they felt the asthma was a serious factor, they'd *send* us to the respiratory group.

I was right. They checked for Fifth Disease. They checked his throat, ears, nose. They listened to his chest. They listened to the account of last night's events and a brief history of life after adenoidectomy.

Then they prescribed antibiotics for the sinus infection and nasal steroids for the *chronic nature* of the sinus infection.

THEN I went home and called the respiratory group.

Surprisingly, they weren't even remotely dismissive. In fact, they were far more aggressive than I could have predicted.

For those of you who have experience with this stuff, we're bypassing Albuterol altogether. We're doing Duoneb or Combivent every four. As a trusted asthma parent, I've got permission to do three doses two hours apart (enough medicine to give an elephant a coronary, quite frankly) if necessary.

We're doin' saline spray 10 minutes prior to the Nasonex, and we're definitely not lowering the Flovent this month.

This'll be fun. Nothing like have your preschooler on a rigid schedule of inhaled speed, after all.

Even better, he has to stay home because there's no way in HECK I'm trusting his daycare to administer meds on schedule, much less identify an asthma attack.

Cool. A preschooler. At home. On speed. While I'm trying to work.

Hey, let's just put him on Orapred too, while we're at it.

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