Monday, August 25, 2008

X-ray

This morning Ben was scheduled to go to Kaiser for a Radiology appointment. He was supposed to drink a very chalky, thick, milk-of-magnesia-consistency drink and then the Radiologist would track his digestion through a live x-ray machine. Ben's Pediatrician had called me on Friday and set up the appointment for Monday (today). Because the appointment was so sudden, and because we had no time for me to be mailed the appropriate paperwork about the appointment, Ben's doctor "reviewed" with me the instructions over the phone.

During the call he had said, "Let me just zone out here for a minute and see if I can find any specific instructions (on the computer)." Then he followed with, "Nope, nothing. Just show up a few minutes early." I asked him at that point, "So it's okay for him to eat a normal breakfast?" and he agreed that that should be fine. He and I went back and forth for a minute discussing fasting and he said he didn't find any special instructions regarding that, so I decided I would just feed him an early breakfast so he would be "hungry" enough to drink the "smoothie". Ben's doctor agreed that "yes, that should be just fine."

Back to this morning...
We arrived at the Radiology appointment a few minutes early and they ushered us in almost immediately. As we were led down one of the millions of hallways (Hubby commented that a person could get seriously lost in a hospital) the technician inquired as to when Ben ate his last meal. So I happily replied, "Oh, he had breakfast at about seven."

No joke she stopped dead in her tracks and stared at me. She checked her watch, it was about nine o'clock. Hesitantly she continued, "And what exactly did he have? Because he's not supposed to have eaten anything! He was supposed to fast from Midnight on!"

I'm sure my expression was more than shocked! I am rule-follower down to the umph detail, so to me this was a completely humiliating moment. I stuttered for a second and answered her, "Well, he had about 2/3 of an Eggo waffle and one small strawberry." Again she lectured me on the importance of fasting before an event like this. I then explained that Ben's doctor had booked the appointment and he didn't mention fasting. I told her the big long story I just told you. She "needed to check with the doctor on staff", so we sat in the hallway and waited. A little while later she returned to tell us that we needed to reschedule for another day so Ben could properly fast.

Rescheduling was not an easy task! I asked for the earliest appointment possible since he's so little, and she informed me that 9:10 was the first appointment of the day. We walked to the reception area and she announced at the top of her voice to the receptionist, "She needs to reschedule because she fed the baby breakfast and he was supposed to fast." Naturally the waiting room was filled to the brim with other patients, causing me to feel like I deserved a "World's Worst Mom" award.

Then as the receptionist looked through the computer database, she found an appointment a couple of weeks away at 10:45. I shook my head "no". She found an open spot for a day this week at 11:30. Clearly the woman does not have children. I said, "No. He gets up at 6:30, there's no way he can make it that long. It HAS to be the first appointment of the day." So then I waited for another twenty minutes while she tried calling the Vallejo office for an appointment. Finally we were successful and were able to reschedule for later this week.

I was irritated with the whole situation. I could not believe that Ben's doctor didn't know he was supposed to fast! I couldn't believe we wasted an hour out of our morning in the company of a rude nurse. And now we had to drive to a different city on a different day because of Ben's doctor's incorrect information! We get to go through all of this again on Friday. woopee.

No comments: