Update…

to yesterday’s post.  I typed this up last night, but never got around to getting it posted.

What a morning!  I left on my way to work after I posted this morning and called the agency to let them know that I needed to get Brady in to see a doctor b/c of his hand and could they please try to get someone in to relieve me.  I then called Brady’s doctor’s office.  Now, just so you understand the whole thing, I’m going to rant a little here.  Last summer, I needed to get the boys in for physicals for football.  I tried to call the Ped’s office they had been with since babies and could not get through on the phone for 2 days!  I was working overnights at the time, and I would stay up in the morning when I got home from work and call every 5 minutes for a few hours, give up, go to sleep, and then get up only a few hours later and call again until the office was closed.  It was ridiculous!  Good thing they weren’t sick!  So I decided right then, that it was time to find an office that was not so busy.  I switched them to a Family doctor that was recommended to us, and he was great.  His office was decorated with fishing and hunting themes, and the boys loved it.  They got their physicals, Calvin had to go back in September to get referred for x-rays on his arm that was hurt at his first game (not broken) and Brady had to go in October for a cold and to get a new inhaler.  3 visits- which was probably more visits than any of us had had in the 2 years before that :)  My neighbor, who referred us, had to go in January and discovered that the Doctor had left his practice.  No notification to any of us at all.  Neighbor saw someone else there and got what he needed.  So I assumed that the boys had a new doctor.  I called this morning, explained the situation, and the secretary asked how old Brady was.  I said 13.  She told me that a doctor would not be in until next Wednesday and that the ‘visiting practitioner’ could not see any patients under 14 years old!  What??  She recommended that I take him to the hospital- which I was trying, in the first place, to avoid the extra costs that go with that.   Called Hubs at work asked him ‘What now?’  he told me to try his doctor or mine- I know, weird, we all have different doctors.  So I called his, couldn’t see him until Friday-recommended we go to hospital.  I was ready to give up at this point and just go to the stupid ER.  So I tried my doctor.  Who, BTW, I’ve only seen a handful of times in the last 10 years, and I have seen him in 3 different offices the last 3 times I’ve had to go (which is almost never).  He was in yet another new office and he couldn’t see him, but she said I could bring him in without an appointment at Express Care Hours and they would register him with my doctor- he would have to see someone else today.  Express Care?   Apparently, this place has ‘clinic-like’ hours that you don’t need appointments for and you just come in!  And on Saturday’s too!  This is sounding pretty sweet.  Because you know, with kids, nothing ever happens when it’s convenient and the office is open.  I took him over, got his paperwork filled out, sat in the waiting room for 5 minutes, and then they called us back.  I explained to the nurse what he did and told her that we would just probably need a referral to the hospital for x-rays.  She said, “That does look pretty bad.  He probably will need some.  We do have an x-ray department on site and an Ortho Doc, if that will work for you.”  I about fell off my chair.  Why, yes…that WILL work for me.  Where did this place come from? lol  I don’t know where you all are from, but around here, you have to go to the hospital for everything!  and wait, seemingly and sometimes for hours, to get it done! Found out that he does have a small fracture at the base of his thumb.  He was seen by a doctor (which I liked), taken to x-ray, seen by Ortho Doc (which I also liked and had to correct him when he told Brady to make a ‘beer can hand’ so they could wrap it. lol  He changed it to a ‘pop can hand’), and they put a half cast/splint on it and we were out the door in 2 hours!  He said probably 3 week healing time on it, so it must not have been too bad- which made me feel better about not rushing him to the ER right away. And my wallet is thanking me for it!  Don’t get me wrong- if he was in any kind of pain, I would have taken him.  He kept telling me it didn’t hurt unless he tried to move it- and when he was showing me that he couldn’t move it, I had to ask him if it hurt b/c he didn’t even indicate that it did at all-.  I was even watching his face.   Now that I think of it, he fractured his arm when he was 7 or 8 and I didn’t take him till the next day b/c he said it didn’t really hurt.  Never asked for Tylenol or anything.  Just went right back to playing.  I only took him b/c I noticed he wasn’t using it as much as he normally did.  The kid has a high pain tolerance, I guess.

Stopped at the small grocery on the way home and was talking to the cashier about it (I’ve known her for years) and she said that she went to the ‘disappearing doctor’ too.  She said she heard he went to a cancer clinic somewhere (kudos to him for that!) and that the only ‘doctor’ she’s seen there since, was a ‘nurse practitioner’  She didn’t even know if there was a doctor there at the practice(which they indicated on the phone that there was).  So that explains why they couldn’t see him, but do you think that a practice, which has been handed a whole load of patients, would let the patients know what the real deal was?  I was just so pissed that if they can’t see any patients under the age of 14, on a regular basis, that they didn’t notify the parents of those patients!  It would have saved me a whole hassle this morning!

Anyway, I’m breathing a sigh of relief now.  They will all 3 now go to my doctor in the new and wonderful one-stop medical facility :)I’ll be back soon with something a little more interesting for you!