Children and Healthcare

Or . . . "Shit Happens, or Sometimes It Doesn't, And Then You Have a Real Problem"


These are the facts of the case: Our daughter was severely constipated. She vomited intermittently, was awake nights, and was generally not herself for exactly one week. We spent at least 9 hours in two emergency rooms and three hours in her pediatrician's office to make this determination. Additionally, we drove four hours round trip to go to the second ER. I've not received the bill yet, and we do have insurance. Everything from appendicitis to kinked bowels was entertained as a probable cause. She was X-rayed three times, and a CT Scan was suggested. Blood work was done, IV fluid was administered. We are not crazy, as far as I know.

A chronology of the events might bore, so I will try to limit myself to pondering the following themes: the diagnostic personalities of doctors, humorous commentary by daughter, radiation, boredom, confusion, and more humorous commentary by daughter.

We saw no less than five doctors in the course of our adventure. They ranged from the bad ass expert to the tentative wimp, and they all seemed to be in the wrong places. We are told to have a family doctor for ourselves and a pediatrician for our child is to avoid the perils of the poor masses throwing themselves at the mercy of the ER. Ironically, the ER, responsible for making sure you are not actively dying, resides in a hospital where all of the expensive testing equipment, presumably designed to give a nuanced picture of how you are living-- not dying, happens to be located. Our family physician does not even have the luxury of timely blood work at her disposal. An entire essay could be written on each individual doctor's approach, but suffice it to say, none of it made a profound difference. The fault there was probably ours. Let's be fair, we'd taken our daughter to doctors because we were extremely worried about some mysterious ailment--she was plugged up. Unfortunately, when the billable hour approaches $300.00, "go home and buy a gentle laxative," seems trite, and so it took long time for someone to get to that conclusion.

Quinn seemed to enjoy the parts of the adventure that didn't involve water or lozenges being placed in her colon. Both X-rays sessions were exciting for her. Even the grown up hospital had cartoons in the exam room! Her most memorable quote may have been, between the second and third sepositories, (to the nurse, who was female) "you're not gonna stick anything else in my buns, you're freaking me out man."

On boredom, I find it odd that people who, even with insurance are expected to fork over hundreds, if not thousands of out of pocket dollars are supposed to expect that a three hour wait, followed by hours of waiting in an exam room is normal. I realize that anyone that works in an ER will find this offensive, and me naive. I'm not commenting on how we got here, or why. I'm only pointing out that the frustration is magnified for someone like me who thinks about these things. I fully acknowledge that we probably had no business in an emergency room. However, to our credit, our doctor had told us to go there--TWICE!!. It's none of the individuals involved fault, it's just really stupid. In no other industry are you asked to both pay top dollar, and sit on your hands for hours. Not even airlines are as guilty as doctors.

The confusion is the worst part, particularly for the parents. I don't know where the confusion comes from. Why are we talking about asymptomatic illnesses. Looking back it seems so obviously not the case, but as mentioned earlier, we discussed appendicitis, tangled bowels, serious infections, and I'm not sure what else. Everything we discussed involved a surgical solution. And billing for surgery was not a motivator. No one we spoke to would have performed or benefited from the surgery. That is not to say that no one we spoke to would have not been saved a lot of trouble if a surgical solution worked out. Additionally, if our wee lady had had a serious problem, no matter how improbable, and the doctors has suggested that she was simply plugged up--oh the consequences. Is this the source of confusion? Two reasonably reasonable parents, one healthy child, nine hours in the ER for constipation . . . . It's unreasonable to think that as soon as I touch (ostensibly to repair) a house I didn't build, I'm responsible for all of its defects moving forward. Just the same, I won't hold a doctor accountable for the improbability that takes my childs life. Oh, that's right, I probably would. Or at least think about it, and be offered a settlement. I really like her! I like to think more of myself, but I'm not going to ask a doctor I barely know to rely on the hope that my better self would prevail.

And yet, our dear's quips endure. After the reception of an enema and the resulting expulsion, she stated, "That was not awesome." And perhaps that captures it all. We struggled through it, and it was not awesome.