And then a Stranger Yelled in my Face
- October 24th, 2009 5:22 pm
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.
October 24th, 2009 @ 5:35 pm
Strangers who make you ugly cry when you are there to help your very sick daughter, need to be jab, and jab HARD, with a sharp stick. I hope Allie is feeling better, and you had no other occasions to cry.
Tara R.´s last blog ..Let me tell you…
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October 24th, 2009 @ 5:46 pm
i’m sorry you had to deal with that on top of a kiddo not feeling well.
i don’t know what it is about hospital-y clinic places and the yelling … the one time i had to hit the emergency room for my asthma the idiotic nurse insisted that *i* and only i answer the health questions. when my partner would answer for me because i couldn’t hardly speak (oddly enough, having a severe asthma attack will do that to you), the nurse would repeat the question more loudly directly into my face until i panted out something resembling an answer. the exact same answer my same-sex partner had just given.
luckily instead of offering my psych services, the head nurse came in and relieved the idiot nurse and took the rest of the information from my partner.
sorry you had to go through that. it’s amazing how petty those folks can be for no damn reason at all.
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October 24th, 2009 @ 5:59 pm
I am so sorry. Here’s to a quick recovery.
I am TERRIFIED of the current flu, mostly because the shot isn’t available here yet and my kids have the dreaded “pre-existing conditions”.
Sadia´s last blog ..Unrelated thoughts
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October 24th, 2009 @ 6:06 pm
I think you should write a letter to the clinic and express your feelings about this topic. Or, write a letter to your local newspaper or online news columnist and tell them. Editorials are wonderful. That is what my mom did when an idiot in California refused to treat me as an infant. It being illegal to refuse care, made the hospital want to give my mom a large sum of money to not say anything else about the subject. (She turned the money down because it was no her goal, she wanted to expose them, which she did) Anyway, I don’t think any other parents should need to go through that, which is why I suggest you write an article to someone local.
I hope you feel better, and Allie too! I know what it’s like to be an overly asthmatic child who gets sick quite often. I am glad she didn’t get the combination of Bronchitis and the Flu like I do. Or Pneumonia and Bronchitis. Love to you both!
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October 24th, 2009 @ 6:28 pm
That is horrible!! Please complain to someone about not only that lady, but also the deplorable way they handle their process!!
I hope Allie feels better quick!
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October 24th, 2009 @ 6:31 pm
A call to their administrative offices to lodge a complaint come Monday morning will not only teach that nasty lady not to yell at concerned parents but make yourself feel better for being assertive.
She is a professional paid to do a job. I’m sure that part of her job description is not terrorizing the parents of patients or the patients themselves.
Hope Allie feels better soon!
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October 24th, 2009 @ 6:49 pm
I’m sorry your daughter is sick and I hope she gets better soon. I also hope we all have real health care reform sometime soon, so you don’t have to worry about all the money when your trying to worry about your kid breathing.
Lisa´s last blog ..Flight Stories
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October 25th, 2009 @ 8:57 am
I cried over my asthmatic kid having the flu, too…and no one even yelled at me. I hope she gets better very soon…miraculously, it didn’t affect my little man nearly as bad as I feared. I think consistent inhaler use helped him a lot! I also hope you don’t get it because it’s awful when you do. I’m on Day 6 and just now starting to feel a little better.
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October 25th, 2009 @ 12:53 pm
Heartbreaking. All of it.
I hope you and the little one feel better very soon.
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October 25th, 2009 @ 7:07 pm
You bring the details of this to many who would never otherwise understand Hope she is feeling better soon and same goes for mama
habanerogal´s last blog ..Adios and aloha
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October 26th, 2009 @ 1:51 am
The part about rarely crying, I could’ve written. I’m the same way.
I want to go rip that woman’s throat out myself. Karma will get her.
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October 26th, 2009 @ 6:04 am
Oh sweetie, that is horrendous.
That sort of treatment would make me really mad. And when I get mad I start the ugly cry. So I totally would have been the same.
And it always astounds me hearing stories about the cost of your healthcare system. When I had a stroke in March I had every test known to man (some even twice – two MRI’s *shudder*) and was in hospital for a week, and I walked out with a bill for 80 bucks. That bill was for my discharge meds.
Seriously, if Australia can get their shit together about this why can’t the US?
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October 26th, 2009 @ 12:59 pm
you make me love my canadian health care.
I hope Allie feels better soon and I hope that lady gets the worst paper cut EVER, and then spills lemon juice in it, and then spills coffee on it, and then slams it in a drawer!
Also, fired.
Katie´s last blog ..Swearing
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October 27th, 2009 @ 5:36 pm
Personally I plan my visits so I can see all the cute Peds but then again I have a thing for peds. Pisses me off when the kids stay well for so long. Who the heck is giving them antibiotics to have them stay well? Seriously though, I have been there and hope that you both are feeling better. How rude that someone only thinks of psychological problems when crying? You could have had your hubby tell you to do it alone that day and that popped an emotional jag. Take care and keep your chin up.
outofworkmama´s last blog ..And then a Stranger Yelled in my Face
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October 27th, 2009 @ 7:13 pm
If I had been there I would have totally junk punched that stranger for you. Don’t mess.
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October 27th, 2009 @ 9:52 pm
I ache for you . . . in no way should you have been treated that way. It pains me to think all you were doing was looking for help and not only you, but your daughter were treated that way. I know people are overwhelmed and stressed, but come on!
I’m glad she’s getting better.
And all I can say is KARMA.
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November 9th, 2009 @ 9:39 am
I hope that by now she is feeling totally fine!
((Hugs)))
Heather~Domestic Extraordinaire´s last blog ..Growing up Giggles Style
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November 10th, 2009 @ 4:10 pm
I’m so late reading this post that hopefully she is all better and back in school. *Hugs*
The Flirty Girl´s last blog ..A Caketastrophe at Patisserie Phillipe, San Francisco, CA
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November 10th, 2009 @ 5:48 pm
I hate strangers, especially mean strangers. Hope Allie is feeling better now!
Devilish Southern Belle´s last blog ..Better late than never, right?
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November 10th, 2009 @ 5:49 pm
i hate the place you’re talking about. i didn’t have insurance once going there, they didn’t take blood or anything. they diagnosed me with a virus and charged me a whopping $1,000.00. just to talk to a doctor. SERIOUSLY?! on another note, i’m sorry you were treated that way. people who live in our hometown just suck like that.
jess´s last blog ..Beauty Box Giveaway Winner
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November 17th, 2009 @ 11:54 am
Have been there and done that!!! Oh, I’ve also cried at the local car dealership, walmart and once at Babies-r-us. Sometimes we just need to hide in the bathroom and eat an oreo….
Lily´s last blog ..Thank you, McDonalds….no, I really mean it…
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November 19th, 2009 @ 5:45 pm
I’m so sorry your baby girl is sick. I hate it when that happens and it’s even worse when someone is ugly to you on top of all the stress you are alredy under.
I hope Allie feels better soon and you too.
My thoughts and prayers are with y’all.
Jackie
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