The School Nurse Called...at 9:30 a.m.

Lexi had been sent to the nurse's office complaining of ear pain. At 9:30 a.m. She hadn't even been there for a whole hour. I explained to the nurse that we had just flown on the airplane Friday and Monday and Lexi has very sensitive ears so perhaps her ears just hadn't gone back to "normal" yet and maybe she could have her blow her nose, drink some water and send her back to class. Because I'm just really not a sucker for pain and illness drama performed by the likes of my 5 yr old future academy award winning actress/drama queen! Listen, if you had spent as much time in the classroom with children as I have, you wouldn't fall for it either! I thought the school nurse would be THRILLED that finally a parent understands the "buck up" get tough mentality and would be excstatic that this mom supports her in sending my child back to class. I mean, she didn't even have a fever! She hasn't had a cold in ages so I knew she didn't have an ear infection. But I guess I should have figured. This IS, after all, 2008 where it probably wouldn't be politically correct to tell a child who visits the nurse, "You'll be fine, go on back to class!" She was insistent that I come get her, I was insistent that she not miss another day of school after being out Friday and Monday for our trip to Texas. 15 minutes later, I was standing in the attendance office signing her out. All that hard work of packing her lunch, getting her backpack together, getting her bathed and dressed, I even ironed the very difficult cotton shirt that morning....WITH SPRAY STARCH, it was all in vain! She wasn't even there long enough for anyone to notice how cute she looked! I called and scheduled her a dr. appt for the afternoon.

We arrived at the dr. office right on time. But is anyone else bothered by the fact that if you're 10 minutes late, they make you reschedule, yet I've never had to wait for LESS THAN an hour and a half? Is it just me? Is this a double standard or what? So they quickly ushered us back to the examining room. You know, the 6x6 holding cell, the room that has no toys or television (unlike the waiting room where it's toys and movies to the max), the room where there is nothing for a child to do other than jump off the examing table over and over and over again and ask a million times what that bio hazzard box on the wall is for, the room where there is a spinning doctor stool that children are a magnet to and will one day break a bone playing with while in the dr office waiting for hours for the doctor to see them??? Yes, that room. So the nurse took us to "that room" and then said, "There are several other patients ahead of you, so it may be a while." I'm quite sure she could see my blood boiling by that statement. Okay, then WHY would you take us OUT of the fun waiting room where there are actually TOYS and bring us HERE to wait forEVER??? Ahhhh, sigh, I love going to the doctor with children! So we waited and we waited and we waited and we waited and FINALLY about an hour and a half later, the doctor came in to see us. And just as I had predicted and told the school nurse, there was not a thing in the world wrong with Lexi's ears. No infections. No fluid. Nothing. The doctor said perhaps the pain was a result of flying...DUH...or that it could be a side effect from the Singulair that she takes every day for her ashtma. Ear pain is apparently a side effect of that drug. Figures. Don't all miracle pills have awful side effects?

So that was that. I wanted to make it clear to Lexi that if you get sent home by the nurse, you don't get to come home and play and have a day off. I made her lay down all day, I made her go to the doctor, and she had to miss church last night too. Oh, she was MISERABLE. About all of that, not about the ear pain (which was already gone by the time I signed her out of the attendance office!)

On another note, I'm thinking SERIOUSLY of taking my kids back to the family doctor rather than the pediatrician. At a family doctor's office when they see small children, they get a little uncomfortable and they do everything they can to get you in and out really fast so they don't have to deal with your kids. I learned this tactic when I once took Lexi to our family doctor in Fort Worth because I couldn't get an appt at the pediatrician's office. It was like as if they had a big red button back there...code red...small child alert...get doctor immediately! If only we could find a family doctor here that we like and trust.