Thursday, January 21, 2010

Doctors are ok

Today Nate had his rescheduled well check. After the craziness of last week I wasn't sure how well today was going to go over. He did see Dr. Garret for a second in the hallway. She was surprised to see that Nate did not require her services to remove his suture, but said that it looks ok. The entire office was shocked when I told them that he had ripped it out on his own, and that it fazed him so little that I'm still not entirely sure when exactly it happened. Poor Stephanie (the MA) was being super careful with him today, and we just reused the measurements from last week. As Dr. Lichstinn said, it's unlikely that he's grown all that much in a week.
Nate was so funny during his exam. He refused to even look at Dr. Lichstinn, and whenever she spoke to him, he turned his head and put his arm out. Do you remember the whole "talk to the hand" thing from the 90's? That's what it reminded me of. She did end up referring us to an eye doctor to lance the stye on his eyelid-which is another appointment I'm not looking forward to. Then she left us to wait for Stephanie to do his shots. After the exam, Nate was starting to regain some of the trust in the whole doctor experience. He was playing in the room, running around, racing his truck and reading his book. When Stephanie came in again he even gave her a smile. Until he went back up on the exam table and saw band-aids. He was freaking out and after the shots were done, he reached down and pulled one of his band-aids off. He gave Stephanie a horrible death glare and threw the band-aid on the ground. Then he grabbed my purse, walked to the door and started chanting "go, go, go ma-ma go"

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Doctor Drama

I've got to start out by saying that I have the most active, most daring, most accident prone little boy. Today Nathan had his 15 month old well child check up scheduled. We got there about 11 minutes late and almost weren't seen. Oh how I wish we hadn't been seen.
The medical assistant got as far as weighing him (22.5 lbs) and marking his head and feet to get his height. When she tried to get the measurement of his head he reached up to bat the tape away. And my dear son--my one-of-a-kind baby, my mischief maker, my trouble magnet--managed to cut himself on the metal tip of the measuring tape. He got the underside of his middle finger, in the crease where it bends. Dr. Lichstinn said that it was a superficial cut, but it would not clot. It kept bleeding and bleeding so Dan held Nate in his lap and kept pressure on Nate's finger. No matter what it kept opening again and again, every time Nate opened his hand, or bent his finger. Dr. Lichstinn finally uttered the phrase that made my blood run cold. "It looks like he's going to need a stitch. It's not bad, so we probably won't need more than one. Let me check with my partner, Dr Garrett." I had to repeat the whole thing because the first time my mind kind of shut off after the word "stitch." My poor baby got his first stitch at 15 months old!
As those who know him can guess, Nate was not a fan of the restraint that was necessary for the procedure. He screamed the entire time, and afterward he refused to even look at the staff. Usually he's flirting with the medical assistants, the scheduler, the girl at the front desk and anyone else he may see. Today he wouldn't even accept an otter pop from the MA who put his band-aid and gauze on after he got sewn up. He did finally take it from Daddy after giving her the stink eye and eying the otter pop suspiciously. Speaking of gauze and band-aids, that has been a whole other battle. Before we even got home from the Dr. office he had removed both. The gauze was wrapped around 4 fingers and his wrist, like a glove. He tore at it with his teeth and ripped it off his hand. Then he slipped the band-aid off his finger and started poking at his stitch. And though I did eventually get him to quit bothering his finger, I have been unsuccessful in every attempt to get him to leave a band-aid on his finger.
Oh, and the other plus of today's insanity: Nate was unable to go through with his exam, so we had to reschedule. After all that fun, we didn't even get to do what we came there for. And now I know that he is going to freak out and wail the minute we go back. He was already associating the Dr. office with pain b/c he's had shots with his last few check ups and a few visits just for shots. So when Dan took him in last month to look at his feet and walking, Nate freaked out and started sobbing when his pants were taken off. Luckily he didn't get any shots, he just got to walk around and play. So this time, when we got to the office, he was cool with being there. Next time, he will get his stitch removed, have a check up, and get shots. There's no way he's ever going back without screaming and freaking out.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Bah humbug

This week Dan and I got "the Bishopric Call" for the second time. We get to give a talk on Sunday. Yay. Can you read the sarcasm in my typing? Our topic is "the scriptures" and I have no idea what I'm going to say. On Monday Dan missed the call, and when he checked his voicemail he let me know what was going on. My first instinct was to very emphatically say NO, NO, NO WAY! But the nagging voice in my head kept repeating the main line from Sunday's Primary lesson. "Choose the right James, always choose the right" And I thought that if I'm going to be teaching a bunch of 5 and 6 year olds to always choose the right, I should start doing it myself. After all, if I'm going to be a teacher, I should lead by example, right? So my emphatic NO turned into a grudging ok. Then, as the days went by I thought of Lamen and Lemuel. They, like Nephi, started out doing what Lehi and the Lord told them to. But they did so grudgingly and they ended up being cursed, not blessed for it. And I realized that I need to have a much better attitude than I actually do. So, I am trying to think of what on earth I'm going to say, and have a better attitude as I work it out. As you may or may not have noticed, I'm still struggling with that part. Actually, I'm on the computer instead of preparing my talk right now.