Thursday, June 26, 2008

J 's doctor visit, part I

J went for his annual check-up last Friday, and several things have me thinking it is time for a new doctor's office for him.
Let me back track to the scheduling of the appointment. One thing I like to do is get the blood work which I know will be requested done before the appointment, so that we do not have to schedule a follow-up visit. When I called to make the appointment, I mentioned this along with the fact that it was J's 10 year old well child visit. The scheduler asked me when his birthday is (July 4) and then could not get it through her head that even though he was not technically 10 yet, we still needed to book the appointment. She kept saying things like "so this is for his 9 year old appointment". Even after I explained that my insurance covers it, she still said "well, I'm making a note that you are the one asking for this appointment." The same thing happened with the blood work...she would not believe me that he had to get it done before the appointment (even though his chart has the order in it).
I got the results of his blood work before our appointment, with the results being high and not what was expected. When I expressed concern, the nurse said we should try again with a fasting blood test...but that was what we just had done! When I pointed that out to her, she suggested my son must have drunk soda before the test. One, he is not allowed to drink soda except special occasions, and two, he understood perfectly well what "fasting" entailed and was not going to put himself through the torture of more needles for a snack.
At the doctor's office, I expressed my concern and the doctor says the same thing, that we should get a fasting test. Exasperated, I point out that it was a fasting test, that the numbers are off the wall and that family history has me concerned for my son's health.
To give the doctor credit, he stopped, took the time to really review this year's and last year's results and apologized and thanked me for making him slow down to review what was in front of him. He agreed that the results were screwy and that it might be a lab error, so he ordered the blood work to be done again. He finished his exam, left, and we waited for the nurse to return with a vaccination for J.
And we waited...and waited..the doctor came back in, asked if we had been seen, went back out, chewed out his nurse (I could hear him), came in again, apologized for the wait and had the nurse come in.
Now, J had had the blood drawn on his left arm and wanted to have the vaccination in his right arm since the other one had already been traumatized. When he asked the nurse if he could do this, she said no, it has to be in the let arm. What?!? Both J and I asked at the same time "why?"(it is intramuscular, the arm choice does not matter).
The nurse got flustered, couldn't really give an answer and had to go confirm with someone that it was indeed OK to have the vaccination in either arm. After getting the vaccination in the arm of his choice, we were off, to return Monday for more blood work.
The blood draw was fine, it was getting the results that cause some trouble... (to be continued)

1 comment:

Envoy-ette said...

Poor J! What a pain in ALL ways! Thank goodness you are a mom not easily pushed aside. Sometimes thats all a kid has in the whacky medical world when people don't know what their doing, think we the patients are just being difficult! I have no doubt you'll get J's condition identified before your done.