Most women have had a scare of some sort. My most recent fright came in a phone call yesterday, as I drove from errand to errand. I'd had a recent mammogram, (or as my friend calls it, the "#!* sandwich"—I'll let you fill in the blank with your choice of fitting words). I'd made it through; I'd been pinched and squeezed, told not to breathe, and oh so happily had been released into normalcy with the all-clear diagnosis.
And then. That phone call. My doctor had compared the current image with the last one from a few years ago... There was something new. Maybe harmless, maybe not. It required a closer look. My heart was pounding, blood rushed through my veins too fast, and all the while my son sat in the back seat of the Honda, listening, his presence forcing me to keep calm and control my voice. I would need to call the appointment maker back when I had my calendar handy, I said.
We arrived early at our last stop of the day, my son's orthodontist. Thankfully, they were able to fit him in quickly; while he met with the doc, I made the dreaded call back to the imaging office. Should I be worried? I asked. The woman attempted to talk me off a ledge while still not committing to any real answer... It was a tad discouraging, even though I could see her point of view. She simply wasn't able to promise me that all was well. That wouldn't have been realistic. We set up an appointment for the very next day. I don't know about you, but once I have a possible disaster looming over my head, I want the damned hammer to fall already—no point delaying impact. That's just how I roll.
We left the orthodontist's office; my son, who'd overheard the end of my appointment set-up call, began to lament about our family and its many medical needs. I immediately tried to set him straight. Whoa, I said, We do all right. What if one of us had cystic fibrosis, or asthma? What if breathing treatments were part of daily life? Or what if one of us were paralyzed, or an amputee? What if we had life-threatening allergies to something? Don't you think that might require a whole lot more medical care and doc visits? Well, yes, concurred the boy. We were pulling into the driveway by then, and the conversation ended.
The requisite "closer look" on the following morning turned out to be nothing. I am able to breathe again, while feeling new empathy toward the folks I know who received a different answer and piece of paper than the one I was given. Everything can change in a heartbeat. We get spoiled, living with and within normal; it's so much more pleasant to be oblivious to what might be lurking or what could have been. And by "we," I really mean "I."
Now, knowing that things are all right in there for today at least, I feel lighter than I did earlier this week. And that's a good thing, to feel lighter, because this horrid cold and snow has absolutely robbed me of all my natural vigor and buoyancy. We have been trapped inside, often at home, trying to be patient with nature, with each other, while we await a break. Spring, or temperatures above 10 degrees Fahrenheit, whichever comes first. Both would be met with great rejoicing at this point.
I guess getting a clean report at the imaging office is sort of like comparing our winter situation to Boston. Hey, look what we avoided, this time at least. Let's be thankful for what we have. Not the most upbeat perspective, I know—but sometimes I need a rather dramatic comparison in order to be able to view my situation honestly. I need to see my trial relative to what others are facing—and since I am a human, and therefore self-centered, my eyes work best when my personal comfort is threatened or removed. Again, for better or worse, that's how I roll.
All right, I'm finished waxing optimistic now. Remind me of all this after the next snowstorm, would you?
Showing posts with label doctor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doctor. Show all posts
Friday, February 20, 2015
Thursday, January 13, 2011
OMG (a.k.a. Tough kid, sissy mama)
When people ask me what's new, I usually say, "Nothing." And I'm usually thankful to say that. Boredom is often the opposite of chaos in my life, perhaps in other lives as well, and I'm happy to embrace boredom much of the time because I prefer it to the alternative.
We got the alternative Tuesday night.
It was a totally normal night. I was nagging the "boys" about bedtime, and finally managed to make my husband understand that the next morning our child would need to rise at the same old time, and that he needed adequate sleep in order to tackle the day with success, etc. My son ate a quick snack (pizza-flavored Goldfish crackers and water) and I herded him into my bedroom to get his clothes off and into the hamper so that PJs could be donned.
Apparently, after I left the room, the kid had an undeniable urge to run, naked but for socks, and see his father in the living room; when he didn't show up, I had to call out and remind him to stay on task and come in for pajamas and tooth-brushing. I was selecting the pajamas from a drawer when suddenly, I became aware that my child was running from the living room into his bedroom. I saw him approaching from the corner of my eye, not really registering the speed with which he came, and a second later there was a loud thump. I glanced up in time to see his feet literally flying out from under him, up in the air—and then saw him hit the floor, landing right on his back.
Now, there have been a few times when my son hit the wall—with his head, or his foot, or his back end when he was crawling around in a clownish manner. So, we'd seen similar situations before; panic did not immediately ensue. He lay there for a second, and my husband and I both scurried over from opposite directions to ascertain the damage. Marcus was still on the floor, and he seemed to have hit not only his face, but also the back of his head when he fell; our home is tiny, and the space in that little hallway outside bedrooms is quite unforgiving.
I was totally unprepared for what met me at close range: my son's forehead was gashed, straight up and down, and blood was spilling out in spurts. I thought I would be sick, and one look at his dad told me he was feeling the same. We sat him up a bit, I grabbed a washcloth and we held it on the forehead, and all the while Marcus was huddled there unclothed, red splashes landing on his bare legs, crying full tilt. Todd remembered to tilt his head back a little, to minimize bleeding, and when the washcloth did not stem the flood, we grabbed a dry hand towel to better soak up the mess.
A minute passed, I threw a blanket on my boy (can kids go into shock from a gash? no matter, it's winter and he's naked), and we worked up the nerve to take another look at the cut. This was the OMG moment, people: it was unspeakably horrific. It looked like a hockey injury. The giant slash running between my child's eyes could have come from a skate blade or a big, sharp stick; it could have been carved in with a knife. It was a perfectly straight line, because (we've since determined in hindsight and re-enactments) he hit it squarely, somehow, on the frame of his bedroom door.
Todd and I both stared at it, trying not to reveal in our faces just how awful it really was. In my head, I was screaming, "OH MY GOD that is so DEEP! I can't believe it! He needs stitches! Holy CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!" but on the outside, I was trying to remain calm and tell my son that everything would be okay. He kept saying, "It hurts," and I was thinking, no *!?# it hurts because I can practically see your SKULL in there!!! But I couldn't say that. So I murmured useless, soothing phrases, and Todd and I spoke with our eyes. Yes, we agreed, yes; we must go out on this snowy, slippery night, to the nearest hospital, right now.
We resigned ourselves to our fate, put some zip-up PJs on the wailing child, fashioned a headband made from destroyed T-shirt in order to secure the blood-soaking cloth, and got ourselves into the car, praying for safe travel, for quick treatment, for the best possible scenario. Thankfully, we made it out of our snow-covered driveway, and the roads were passable.
Let me take a moment to rave about Suburban General Hospital in Bellevue. The folks there were wonderful: quick, thorough, calming and friendly. We were the only ones in the ER, and they saw to us immediately, talking through what had happened, chatting with Marcus who had since stopped crying and was looking quite pitiful. One look at the depth of the cut and they knew it needed stitches; no skin glue for this one. To their credit, they were honest with my little guy, and told him (not all at once, but as needed) what they were going to do. There were three of them prepping him; a matronly type wrapped him in a sheet tightly, to immobilize his arms, but she talked with him as she worked, joked a little, made him as comfortable as possible. The assisting nurse, an affable fellow who was blind in one eye, was warm and friendly with all of us and put everyone at ease. The doctor who washed, gave numbing shots, and stitched was confident, very capable, and worked with speed.
Here's where I must confess that after they began to wash the cut, and I got a better look at just how horrible it was, I had to sit down and I missed most of the really gory stuff because I was fighting the simultaneous urges to throw up and fall down. I didn't see the stitching; I simply could not look. I saw the doctor's hands lifting, going down with the needle, pulling it up again, but I certainly wasn't counting; I couldn't watch for that long. (He got 5 stitches, according to his dad.)
But as much as a wimp as I turned out to be, my son was beyond stoic. The only crying he did was at home. When the doctor told him there would be stitching, and shots to numb the injury, his mouth turned down on the outsides—the telltale pre-cry face. Yet somehow, it never became full-blown. He set the mouth back to a normal line, he nodded or answered when asked a question, he allowed the nurse to hold his small, frightened face perfectly still while a man with a sharp object laced a nylon thread through his lacerated forehead. He never made a sound. Nothing.
The ER folks were impressed. I was speechless. What a tough guy. He was lying there, we were encouraging him and telling him it was almost done, and I was too sick to feel proud of him at that moment—but I knew, even as I fought the urge to hurl, that his behavior was pretty amazing.
Marcus bounced back just fine. When the procedure was finished, he stood with boots back on; since his face was still numb, he was in very good spirits. His dad and I? Both of us were sitting, ashen-faced, glad it was done but shocked it had transpired at all—and wondering which of us would be able to drive home. (Todd was; he thankfully did all the driving that night.) The amazing thing was the timetable from start to finish: On a treacherous winter night, my boy had run into a wall at approximately 8:45, and we pulled back into our driveway, stitched and bandaged, a couple of minutes after 10pm.
God is good. He put all the pieces in place, so that while my poor child had to go through that experience, it was as painless as possible. He didn't even miss kindergarten the next day (I'd been planning on keeping him home) because the weather turned very sour again, and the school district cancelled classes.
It's alarming to realize you are not nearly as tough as you would like to believe. Happily, my weakness was more than balanced by my offspring's strength. It would have understood if he'd cried, if he'd been a bit uncooperative, but it was as if he knew that his behavior would make or break the whole incident.
Thanks for listening, especially to my bragging about my boy; I try not to do that, especially here, but I feel it's more than merited on this occasion. And by the way: absolutely NO RUNNING in the house.
To quote Pulp Fiction, "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go have a heart attack."
P.S. Stay tuned for a future post about the bill. Haven't got that yet... but I'm anticipating ugliness, as our plan has a ridiculously high deductible.
We got the alternative Tuesday night.
It was a totally normal night. I was nagging the "boys" about bedtime, and finally managed to make my husband understand that the next morning our child would need to rise at the same old time, and that he needed adequate sleep in order to tackle the day with success, etc. My son ate a quick snack (pizza-flavored Goldfish crackers and water) and I herded him into my bedroom to get his clothes off and into the hamper so that PJs could be donned.
Apparently, after I left the room, the kid had an undeniable urge to run, naked but for socks, and see his father in the living room; when he didn't show up, I had to call out and remind him to stay on task and come in for pajamas and tooth-brushing. I was selecting the pajamas from a drawer when suddenly, I became aware that my child was running from the living room into his bedroom. I saw him approaching from the corner of my eye, not really registering the speed with which he came, and a second later there was a loud thump. I glanced up in time to see his feet literally flying out from under him, up in the air—and then saw him hit the floor, landing right on his back.
Now, there have been a few times when my son hit the wall—with his head, or his foot, or his back end when he was crawling around in a clownish manner. So, we'd seen similar situations before; panic did not immediately ensue. He lay there for a second, and my husband and I both scurried over from opposite directions to ascertain the damage. Marcus was still on the floor, and he seemed to have hit not only his face, but also the back of his head when he fell; our home is tiny, and the space in that little hallway outside bedrooms is quite unforgiving.
I was totally unprepared for what met me at close range: my son's forehead was gashed, straight up and down, and blood was spilling out in spurts. I thought I would be sick, and one look at his dad told me he was feeling the same. We sat him up a bit, I grabbed a washcloth and we held it on the forehead, and all the while Marcus was huddled there unclothed, red splashes landing on his bare legs, crying full tilt. Todd remembered to tilt his head back a little, to minimize bleeding, and when the washcloth did not stem the flood, we grabbed a dry hand towel to better soak up the mess.
A minute passed, I threw a blanket on my boy (can kids go into shock from a gash? no matter, it's winter and he's naked), and we worked up the nerve to take another look at the cut. This was the OMG moment, people: it was unspeakably horrific. It looked like a hockey injury. The giant slash running between my child's eyes could have come from a skate blade or a big, sharp stick; it could have been carved in with a knife. It was a perfectly straight line, because (we've since determined in hindsight and re-enactments) he hit it squarely, somehow, on the frame of his bedroom door.
Todd and I both stared at it, trying not to reveal in our faces just how awful it really was. In my head, I was screaming, "OH MY GOD that is so DEEP! I can't believe it! He needs stitches! Holy CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!" but on the outside, I was trying to remain calm and tell my son that everything would be okay. He kept saying, "It hurts," and I was thinking, no *!?# it hurts because I can practically see your SKULL in there!!! But I couldn't say that. So I murmured useless, soothing phrases, and Todd and I spoke with our eyes. Yes, we agreed, yes; we must go out on this snowy, slippery night, to the nearest hospital, right now.
We resigned ourselves to our fate, put some zip-up PJs on the wailing child, fashioned a headband made from destroyed T-shirt in order to secure the blood-soaking cloth, and got ourselves into the car, praying for safe travel, for quick treatment, for the best possible scenario. Thankfully, we made it out of our snow-covered driveway, and the roads were passable.
Let me take a moment to rave about Suburban General Hospital in Bellevue. The folks there were wonderful: quick, thorough, calming and friendly. We were the only ones in the ER, and they saw to us immediately, talking through what had happened, chatting with Marcus who had since stopped crying and was looking quite pitiful. One look at the depth of the cut and they knew it needed stitches; no skin glue for this one. To their credit, they were honest with my little guy, and told him (not all at once, but as needed) what they were going to do. There were three of them prepping him; a matronly type wrapped him in a sheet tightly, to immobilize his arms, but she talked with him as she worked, joked a little, made him as comfortable as possible. The assisting nurse, an affable fellow who was blind in one eye, was warm and friendly with all of us and put everyone at ease. The doctor who washed, gave numbing shots, and stitched was confident, very capable, and worked with speed.
Here's where I must confess that after they began to wash the cut, and I got a better look at just how horrible it was, I had to sit down and I missed most of the really gory stuff because I was fighting the simultaneous urges to throw up and fall down. I didn't see the stitching; I simply could not look. I saw the doctor's hands lifting, going down with the needle, pulling it up again, but I certainly wasn't counting; I couldn't watch for that long. (He got 5 stitches, according to his dad.)
But as much as a wimp as I turned out to be, my son was beyond stoic. The only crying he did was at home. When the doctor told him there would be stitching, and shots to numb the injury, his mouth turned down on the outsides—the telltale pre-cry face. Yet somehow, it never became full-blown. He set the mouth back to a normal line, he nodded or answered when asked a question, he allowed the nurse to hold his small, frightened face perfectly still while a man with a sharp object laced a nylon thread through his lacerated forehead. He never made a sound. Nothing.
The ER folks were impressed. I was speechless. What a tough guy. He was lying there, we were encouraging him and telling him it was almost done, and I was too sick to feel proud of him at that moment—but I knew, even as I fought the urge to hurl, that his behavior was pretty amazing.
Marcus bounced back just fine. When the procedure was finished, he stood with boots back on; since his face was still numb, he was in very good spirits. His dad and I? Both of us were sitting, ashen-faced, glad it was done but shocked it had transpired at all—and wondering which of us would be able to drive home. (Todd was; he thankfully did all the driving that night.) The amazing thing was the timetable from start to finish: On a treacherous winter night, my boy had run into a wall at approximately 8:45, and we pulled back into our driveway, stitched and bandaged, a couple of minutes after 10pm.
God is good. He put all the pieces in place, so that while my poor child had to go through that experience, it was as painless as possible. He didn't even miss kindergarten the next day (I'd been planning on keeping him home) because the weather turned very sour again, and the school district cancelled classes.
It's alarming to realize you are not nearly as tough as you would like to believe. Happily, my weakness was more than balanced by my offspring's strength. It would have understood if he'd cried, if he'd been a bit uncooperative, but it was as if he knew that his behavior would make or break the whole incident.
Thanks for listening, especially to my bragging about my boy; I try not to do that, especially here, but I feel it's more than merited on this occasion. And by the way: absolutely NO RUNNING in the house.
To quote Pulp Fiction, "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go have a heart attack."
P.S. Stay tuned for a future post about the bill. Haven't got that yet... but I'm anticipating ugliness, as our plan has a ridiculously high deductible.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Drugs, and the nice, well-dressed people who ply them
Okay, just a quick little spout here, because I was reminded of my ire about this issue when I spoke to my parents earlier this evening. (Did you know that Robert Jarvik, inventor of the artificial heart, has never actually practiced medicine? Has never even taken an internship to do so? Boy, when you see him on TV, touting the benefits of Lipitor in his spiffy white coat, it certainly would be easy to make that assumption. Got a boatload of money for making that ad, though. [See the story here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16039753/and don't miss the last three paragraphs.] Thanks, Dad and Mom, for telling me this so I can have yet another reason to distrust the big drug companies; now they’re misleading me as well as trying to make a sale off of my unhealthy back.)
Anyway. Back to my ire, the root of which you may have guessed by now. I’m reminded of it each time I go to the doctor’s office, and depending on the season in our home, that can be pretty often. Lately, we’ve been able to steer clear—but Halloween and Thanksgiving were not nearly so kind, and during those weeks, we spent many dull hours waiting in lobbies and sterile (so they say) rooms for doctors and nurses.
And each time, each and every stinkin’ time we were there, I saw at least one—but usually more than one—well-dressed youngish person, carrying a briefcase or laptop case or both. Who were these attractive professionals hanging out at doc’s place, sweet-talking the receptionist? How did these suits manage to get through the magic door before my sniffly, fevered little kid? Why, they were prescription drug representatives, of course. Were they sick, you ask? Of course not. They were there primarily, I'd guess, to introduce the doctors to their employer's newest available drugs.
That’s right, they were there to push drugs. I’m starting to see very little difference between these folks and the corner crack dealer. At least the crack dealer doesn’t present himself as a respectable and responsible member of society.
Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh. I know that many, many people have benefited from prescription drugs, be it on a daily basis or in a one-time emergency situation. Drugs save lives. They improve lives. They are valuable in health maintenance; for some people, they are absolutely imperative. And I even know a fellow who became a drug company representative, and he was a very nice guy, amicable, admirable—not a dealer at all.
And yet. Why is it that I see more prescription drug advertisements than any other type of ad, both on television and in print? How is it right that, as has been reported, the companies that produce these drugs spend more money telling people to ask their doctor for a substance than they spend on researching said substance? That’s messed up.
I was furious last time this happened at the doctor’s office. I was thinking, why can’t the doctor just say “No, thank you”? Why must he or she continue to sacrifice already-at-a-premium time and energy to these reps? And then, even as I was spewing fire, I pictured that little case that the reps carry. Oh, yeah. Free samples. Have I ever received any of those? Yep. Have you? Likely. If the doctors don’t “visit” with the reps regularly, could it jeopardize the free sample supply? Maybe. I won’t pretend to know the answer to that question, but it certainly gave me pause.
However, I STILL think it’s messed up. Drugs that save lives should not be advertised to the consumer public as just another purchasable product. It’s just wrong, and it wasn’t always that way. When I was a kid, no one ever suggested to my family that we ask the doctor about a specific drug. We’d never even heard the names of the drugs. I can remember knowing, as a little kid, that antibiotics saved the life of my sister, who’d had complications from appendicitis...but I don’t remember the specific name of the antibiotic. We didn’t need to know because the doctor knew. Remember the doctor? Our health advisor? The trusted and knowledgeable professional who studied this stuff so we didn’t have to?
I liked those days better. We got to see the doctor sooner, and we didn’t have to ask him anything about mysterious drugs we couldn't pronounce. The doctor asked us questions, and then he did his job and treated us. Remember that?
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