Everything But the Swine Flu

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In my last post, I wrote about how DS1 was coming down with a cold, and I felt like I was as well.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened. We were both miserably ill with a nasty ear, nose and throat bug that had us sneezing, congested with runny noses, and feeling just plain miserable. On top of it all, I had a terrible headache.

Since we’re always sick, I decided we needed to nip this in the bud in more ways than one.

Killing the Bug

In addition to lots of orange juice and my homemade chicken soup, I gave my kids some treats loaded with Vitamin C and Zinc. First, as I’ve stated before, the Little Remedies Saf-T-Pops are fantastic. Each sucker has 50% daily value of Vitamin C in addition to some Zinc thrown in for good measure. I also gave my kids some great popsicles, or rather, fruit bars. No artificial colors or flavors. Just frozen fruit bars with some extra Vitamin C thrown in, and some sugar to taste. Very very tasty stuff, I must admit. We gorged ourselves on those for several days.

Don’t Spread it Around!

DS2 hadn’t caught the bug yet, so I decided that whatever his brother and I were doing, he would do it too. No medicine, just lots of treats with Vitamin C and Zinc, and we gave him the chicken soup when we made it as well. I’ve also become quite strict about eating all of your vegetables at dinner, so we really started to come down on him about that. The good news? He didn’t catch the cold at all! Maybe we’re on to something here?

In addition, right as DS1 and I were both feeling rather ill, my parents came into town for a visit. They, too, practiced the above prevention methods in addition to washing their hands frequently and taking Vitamin C supplements. They never came down with it either. However, who knows what they might’ve caught on the plane ride back home. I shudder at the thought.

A Peak Into Socialized Medicine – AKA “Obamacare”

I don’t want to go into too many details about my personal life, so I won’t say how I’ve experienced my own version of socialized medicine. However, believe me when I tell you that I’ve been dealing with it my entire life. Sometimes it’s good; sometimes it’s not so good; most of the time, it’s downright awful.

I also don’t want to make this blog too political, as it’s not my focus. However, in this case, I feel it’s an important thing to chronicle here, both as a step in informing people of the type of health care system we are now facing, as well as journaling the last 2 weeks of my life and health.

Because the kids and I are always sick, as soon as we came down with this latest bug, I was simply fed up and made appointments for DS1 and myself. I was absolutely astonished that I was able to get a same day appointment for both of us, back to back. (The last time I attempted to make a same day appointment, they were all booked up a half hour after they started taking appointments. I was told to call again on Monday, which only made me angry and frustrated. What made me even more frustrated is that DS1 and I both required antibiotics that were put off another few days because we didn’t get care — Health Coverage does NOT equal Health Care!).

So, our most recent appointments were at 1:00 and 2:00. I would see the regular family physician at 1:00, and DS1 would see the pediatrician down the hall at 2:00. Actually, I wasn’t seeing a doctor at all. I wasn’t even going to see a PA (Physician’s Assistant). No, I had an appointment with a nurse.

I checked in at 12:45, sat down with my form, my mom, and the kids, and began filling out the form between sneezes. 1:00 rolled around, and I wasn’t called. 1:20 came around, and I walked my sick self to the front desk to inquire as to why I was still waiting, and that I needed to be seen soon as my son had a 2:00 appointment in pediatrics. They had no idea why I hadn’t been called; in fact, they paged the nurse who was supposed to see me, who didn’t respond to the page, and then told me “Have a seat, and we’ll try to track her down.” Uhm, what?

Finally, at about 1:40, the nurse calls me back. My mother and kids stayed in the waiting room while I was ushered down so many hallways that I would never find my way back on my own. The nurse was apologetic, blaming the computer system updates they’ve been dealing with, as to why I wasn’t seen at my scheduled appointment time. She seemed nervous, was horribly overweight, and had the shakes. I wondered it she should have an appointment as well, and then wondered even more why I see so many overweight nurses who seem sicker than I do.

As she showed me into the examination room, I told her that I was in a hurry because my son had his appointment coming up. She said she realized that and would try to speed this along. This was immediately followed by, “Have a seat. I will be right back.”

Before I could protest, she was out the door, shutting it behind her. I was dumbfounded to the point that I began talking to her as if she were there. “Are you serious? You left me waiting for over a half an hour and then you finally call me and tell me I need to wait even longer?” I probably mumbled a few obscenities as well.

She finally returned and took the form that the receptionist instructed me to fill out in the waiting room. Surprise! They had me fill out the wrong form. So, we sped along through the correct questionnaire to start before we went through the examination.

Did you ever see the ER episodes when the guy with MS (Multiple Sclerosis) was interning there? As this nurse, with the shakes, was looking in my ears, I recalled the episode where the intern’s MS was acting up and he was shaking uncontrollably. As he went to look into a young patient’s ears, his body suddenly jerked uncontrollably and he stabbed her deep inside her ear. OUCH! I couldn’t help but wonder if she was going to stab me in the ear, and how I would seriously go off if she did.

Thankfully, I left unharmed. But I also left untreated. After the examination, she asked what I had been prescribed before that has helped me in the past. HA! My thoughts, “You mean to tell me that I could just rattle off any old prescription and you’ll just give it to me? Oh, the possibilities!”

Instead, I said, “Nothing.” Why? Because I don’t generally go to the doctor for something like this, but it keeps creeping back so much I feel like I need to be medicated or tested because something’s not right when you catch every single ear, nose and throat bug that passes through.

She took her paperwork to the doctor, who never even set foot in my examination room, but felt that his fat little assistant who sped through my examination with her nervous disposition did an adequate enough job for him that he was able to write me two prescriptions which he then gave to her to present and explain to me. As I waited for the nurse to return from seeing the doctor, I contemplated walking out and taking my son to his appointment so he wouldn’t be late and would at least receive decent care.

I left with my care instructions and prescriptions. None of it was the least bit helpful. I know how to take care of my cold symptoms, and I wasn’t sure I was going to take the prescriptions I had been given, seeing as how no doctor ever saw me and the nurse rushed through my examination. I took the paperwork and rushed to the waiting room where my mother quickly got the kids together to run to pediatrics.

God bless my mother. She already told the receptionist at pediatrics what was happening with my appointment, so they were ready for DS1 and very understanding. However, a somewhat comical remark was made by a male receptionist upon my entering. He said, “We’re going to have to rent you a room here.” Haha! Yeah, funny…but not so funny. Thanks.

Unfortunately, DS1′s doctor wasn’t very helpful either. She mumbled the whole time, and with her accent, that made it even more difficult to understand her. She gave him a full examination, and didn’t rush through it. She acted as if we shouldn’t even be there, which I agree we shouldn’t have, but as I explained to her, I need help. We are always sick! Isn’t there something we can do about it?

While I couldn’t disagree with anything she said, I walked out knowing that she didn’t tell me anything new. I left even more frustrated than before, went to the pharmacy to collect various prescriptions, and went home.

I decided against taking the meds. My head was killing me and I didn’t have the chance to read the paperwork I requested on the medications, so I felt it wasn’t a good idea to take pills I wasn’t familiar with just yet. “If I’m still miserable tomorrow, I will read the facts and make a decision.” However, a miraculous recovery the next day came my way. However, I’m still hacking up and blowing out nasty yellow junk, I don’t have congestion or horrible sneezes every few minutes. Definitely a major improvement.

Coming Out of Both Ends

While DS2 never caught the ENT bug, he came down with something else entirely…something much worse. It started with diarrhea in the morning a few days ago, and ended up with smelly junk coming out of both ends. Yes, diarrhea and vomiting. I couldn’t figure out what the heck happened, and I spent the better part of my afternoon cleaning up after his various upchucks and trying to push fluids to prevent dehydration. After awhile, it was time to call the doctor in case I needed to be worried.

The doctor on call gave me a ring, and we talked about the situation. Doctor diagnosed it as a virus (funny, because she never once examined him), and told me that if he was still vomiting later and wasn’t urinating, or was unresponsive and lethargic, he should go to the ER. Okay, so he doesn’t have to go to the ER. That’s all I needed to know. However, I’m not sure it was a virus. We caught him playing with soap numerous times that day, and I’m pretty sure he ingested some nasty hand soap one of those times and was now paying the price. I brought this up to the doctor, but she disagreed and said it’s probably a stomach bug that’s going around.

Whatever. Fine. It’s a bug. But she also said that if it was the soap, not to worry. It’s not toxic to him, and his body is getting rid of it.

Okay, fine. Push fluids slowly, don’t aggravate the stomach lining and cause upchucks, watch and make sure he pees, and if he’s talking to you and is responsive, he will be fine. Good. Thank you. Moving on.

He is still a bit ill today. I think he’s mostly tired as he did become dehydrated to a point. I think the illness has made him exhausted, and so right now he is napping and will probably be back to his normal self by Monday. I guess we’ll find out if this is viral or if it was the soap, once we see if the rest of us catch this nasty thing. Bring on the Vitamin C! More popsicles, suckers, and Gatorade! Nip it in the bud before it even shows up.

So there it is. A two week update on the health of my kiddos and me. This time we were so sick I didn’t even have the chance to blog about it. However, that may be because my parents were here as well.

Now to have a Vitamin C sucker and maybe take a nap.