And then a Stranger Yelled in my Face

October 24th, 2009 5:22 pm ·
22 comments

Allie has the flu, and a stranger made me cry today.

When I took her to see a doctor today, her pediatrician’s office, as well as local urgent care clinics, was already closed. This meant I had to take her to the care clinic in the local hospital. There are a million reasons why going to this clinic is stressful. Here are the basics:

a.) While it is like a Doctor’s office, they bill like a hospital. By bill like a hospital, it is $495 to be seen by a Physician’s Assistant, whether any tests have been ran or not. If so, expect more. Once Allie had to have a breathing treatment late at night before we had a nebulizer or had her asthma diagnosed. Just to have the breathing treatment and be seen by a girl for a flash of a second, it was $1500. For a breathing treatment. Seriously.

b.) It is usually full of wayward crackheads feigning pain.

c.) It’s located inside of the hospital. So, yeah.

I was dreading going, but we really had no choice. Allie flinches at the sight of any medical building where she might receive a shot or finger prick. She is fairly skilled at spotting them. Obviously, the screaming from my never-screams-unless-she-thinks-she’s-getting-a-shot child begins as soon as she spots a building of this nature. You can see the hospital from the road; however, you have to drive up a massive hill in order to reach it. The hill is at least half a mile long.

Please imagine screaming from my feverish, asthmatic, hacking cough child all the way up this hill at the regulated speed of 25 mph. After calming Allie and finding a parking place, we trekked to the clinic. Allie was suffering from extreme leg pains so I had to carry her or else she waddled like a penguin. In my other arm, I had a giant bag with books, water and a stuffed big bird. Adam was working so any extra hands I might’ve had weren’t available.

The waiting room was full. It is one of the most poorly organized places I’ve ever seen. They have a variety of unidentified windows for you to fill out your forms. Of course, there are no signs or people to tell you to do so. You just have to wait at the window that actually has a person manning it. Then you find out. It’s so inefficient.

After you finally fill out the forms, you take them to a different window. Again, there are no signs to tell you this.

When I finished the papers, I took them to the correct window. The lady manning the window felt the need to yell at me, a mother holding a sick child that only did what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to hand her a form. I handed her a form. Heaven forbid anyone actually have to do their damn job. Because if so, there will apparently be screaming.

To be honest, I’m pretty hormonal right now. Very hormonal. Somehow the yelling of the stranger two feet away from my face makes me cry. I don’t do pretty or petty crying. I cry a few times a year and that’s it. So if I cry, it is the ugly. Believe me, it is easy to do the ugly cry when you are holding your 4 year old with one arm and knowing that by the time she has been treated, your bill would have been the price of a trip to Disney World.

It is also easy to do the ugly cry when you are scared because your daughter’s lungs are sometimes the suck and illness can make it unbelievably difficult for her to move air. It is also easy to do the ugly cry when you’ve spent the week arguing with your husband about how your daughter doesn’t need pulled out of preschool just because she’s gotten sick a few times. Kids get sick. They still need to learn.

Anyway, even when I know it is going to happen, I’m always surprised to find myself crying. That said, I RARELY cry in front of Allie. Rarely. I know you could probably feed me back some babble about how it’s okay for your child to see you cry, and I know it can be okay. But I also know that when my child sees me cry, she will start to cry. The last thing I need Allie to do is sympathy cry. Crying=even more difficulty breathing.

Oh, and don’t worry, after a stranger has yelled in your hormonal and worried face, inducing tears, and you are doing the ugly cry in a room full of strangers wearing masks to yield off flu germs, the stranger will offer psychological help to you. OH YES SHE DID. Not that there’s anything wrong with psychological help. If I had needed it, I would have gladly taken it. But the only thing I needed was for someone to see my child. I didn’t need anyone to yell at me over a piece of paper.

Eventually, after a few hours, Allie was finally seen. She was diagnosed with the flu by a nice lady that did not yell in my face. We passed time watching people be flown out in the helicopters. At one point I caught myself thanking the skies for the helicopters that served as entertainment, then I thought about why they were there in the first place, to escort someone who was too seriously ill to be treated at that particular hospital, and I was no longer thankful.

I am, however, thankful for the fact that Allie seems to be slightly better. Thought I may do the ugly cry again at any given minute.

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