The Doctor's Visit

I know I’ve whined before on such subjects… but when you have an especially annoyingly long wait at an after-hours clinic, it’s worth at least a whine and a blog entry. Today a visit was in order because my two youngest boys had something severely wrong with their bottoms. Disgusting really. The baby has been having issues with a chemical reaction to a brand of diapers, and then an allergic reaction to, we think, cinnamon, and today when they both presented a disgusting anal rash I knew that more than “just plain old Vaseline” was in order.

This doctor’s office boasts that it is open 24 hours a day 365 days a year, and yet I’m pretty sure they make it extra inconvenient when you do happen to come in “after hours”. We waited in the teeny tiny waiting room for a whole hour before we saw the doctor. The dumbest little room I’ve ever seen at a pediatricians’ office ever. The walls were decorated with football memorabilia that I presume boast the doctor’s favourite team… and my kids could have cared less about. There were no fun carpets with letters and animals for me to name so they could jump from one to the next, nothing to look at except that the window blinds were completely in reach and didn’t quite close all the way once we were done with that room. Why oh why do they place steps next to the examining table anyways? Why can’t the doctor bring his special rolling chair in with him instead of leaving it to tempt my child? Why are there posters on each wall preaching young child safety measures, and then cupboards and drawers galore that don’t have any type of child safety device? And when was the last time they shampooed those nasty carpets that my “stripped down to the diaper please” child is walking barefoot on (when he’s not scaling the steps, examining table, roly chair and blinds)? And, lastly, and disgustingly, where was the sanitizer in this annoyingly small room we were banished to for an eternity with the short doorknob that my child can merely pull down on and escape?

Well we survived. I completely disregarded the no food please rule and fed them any remnant of food I could find in the purse I grabbed. The doctor we saw was extremely pleasant, so that was nice. But I nearly died when my son was asked to roll over on his side so the doctor could take a look at his cute little bottom and Little E tooted and said, “Do you know what that sound is your highness? Those are the shrieking eels.”

We left with a “recipe for the pharmacist” and now we have some yummy medicine in our refrigerator. Hopefully we won’t have to go back any time soon. I covet the days of home visits… where the doctor comes to me.