Trapped at the Doctor's: Endless Waiting, With Two Four-Year-Olds and a String of Work Emergencies

11/19/2009

The tired-looking woman at the doctor’s office shoves a towering stack of paperwork at me. After relentless haranguing by the boys' school, we’re here at the D.C. branch of a national HMO to get their age-four shots.
 

And it doesn’t bode well that we’re greeted with at least half a trunk’s worth of dead tree. (Can’t they just Xerox what I filled out last time? It’s exactly the same.)

When I’m finally done furiously writing what I’m sure nobody will ever read—I’m reminded of those college blue-book tests—I plunk it down on the front desk.

A nurse looks up, calls out, “You know, there are four people in front of you. Gonna be a while.”

“WHAT? Why so many in front of me? How did this happen?” As it is, it’s a bad day to be missing work. We’re in the middle of 18 health care-reform-related emergencies, I’ve taken on a huge new project, and then there are the usual Web fires.

“Dunno. Just the schedule today.” The nurse just looks at me, impassive. All she’s missing is the bubble gum to snap. “You wanna reschedule?”

“No!  I had to upend my schedule for this as it is! I just hope it goes fast!” I stride back to my seat, fuming.

For the next two hours—yes, two hours!—we wait. While I frantically try to schedule meetings on my BlackBerry—thinking, there has to be a better way than finger-punching these microscopic keys—the kids throw stuff around the waiting room and periodically dive-bomb me.

When we're finally shown to an examining room, a nurse takes some readings, scribbles on a chart, and leaves. And then….you guessed it, we wait some more. At least another half hour more.

It’s past the boys’ lunch time, well into their nap time, and they’re getting VERY CRANKY. And now I'm supposed to undress them and get them into those freezing-cold paper things. They don't comply.

Bzzzzzzzt! Bzzzzzzzt! My BlackBerry starts going bananas:  “EMERGENCY: Link going to porn site—FIX IMMEDIATELY!”

Well this is perfect timing. My eyelid twitches as I watch the responses pop: “Where’s the link? WTF?? What porn site?? Can Bridget fix it?”

No! Bridget can’t fix it. She’s stuck in prison, AKA the doctor’s office, trying to convince her distraught four-year-old to don a paper dress. And, unfortunately, the worst is yet to come.

In walks the doctor. She’s perfectly nice. Just two hours and 45 minutes late. She does a quick exam of both boys, signs off on their shots, and hands me referrals for an allergist (for T-Rex) and an ophthalmologist (for both of them). Done!  Well, until somebody has to haul them to all those appointments.

Today, all we have left is the big event: the shots. But still. We. Have. To. Wait.

By the time the nurse arrives with her tray of doom, the kids are pelting each other with tongue depressors. I’ve long since given up.

Next is the part every parent dreads:  I have to hold down each of my children while a stranger sticks ginormous needles into their legs. In this case, five needles a kid. When she’s done, both boys are crying boulder-size tears.

“Can we go now?” I ask, head pounding, angry at the whole situation.

“No,” says the nurse. “I still gotta do your paperwork.”

The door slams shut, and I’m left with my howling, half-dressed kids. Perfect time for my ShackleBerry to start spazzing again. “Bzzzzzzzt! Bzzzzzzzt! BZZZZZZZZZT! Contract finalization meeting: 15 minutes.” Uh. No way. Not gonna make it. And no, I'm not going to call in from the doctor's office.

I turn to my hungry, tired, sniffling, needle-struck kids.

“Guys,” I say. “You know what we’re going to do? We’re not going to wait any more. We’re going to go get you some stickers. Right now!” The wailing stops for a second. “Stick-owz?” asks Punk hopefully.  I take them by the hands and march them off to find a nurse. Or tech. Or someone with access to stickers. I don’t give a continental hoot who.

It takes a while—everyone’s at lunch or something— but we finally track down our shots nurse. “We need some stickers please. NOW!!”

“Well, OK,” she says grudgingly.

“And may I also have those papers? We’ve been here over four hours.”

She hands them over, somewhat sheepishly, I think (I later find out some are missing), and we bolt. Enough is enough.

Driving the kids to school, feeding them chicken sandwiches and cupcakes I scrounged from a food cart, I make an executive decision: I am going to switch us to more expensive health insurance. Immediately if not sooner.

There is no reason to wait four and a half hours to get five lousy shots. That’s almost an hour a shot.

'I Don’t WANNA Go to School. You Can’t MAKE Me!' Oh, But I Can Sweet-Talk You

11/12/2009

T-Rex is hunched on the couch, arms folded, glaring at me.

He’s staked his position, and he’s not budging: “I don’t like playschool. I’m staying here!”

I’m glaring back at him, BlackBerry in my backpack buzzing work requests it seems I will never get to.

We had an episode like this not so long ago, involving both T-Rex and his twin brother, Punk. They pretty much staged a mutiny against school, and I devised what I thought was a brilliant solution. I told them we were going on safari. Punk’s favorite stuffed animal, “Elephant,” had gone missing, so I suggested we go find him. The search would just happen, you know, during the walk to school.

I strapped on their safari hats, and boy did my ploy work. They were out the door in seconds, running down the street calling “Elephant! Elephant!”

We had a few hitches. Like Elephant had recently scratched his butt (which required a band-aid), and there was some concern that he was incapacitated. Also, Punk decided we couldn’t move forward without a map. Luckily, I produced an imaginary one that he then kept checking. We looked for Elephant behind bushes, under leaf piles, and up in the trees (I know I know, elephants don’t generally climb trees, but you do what you have to do).

The whole thing went gangbusters until I steered them into their school. They immediately lay down on the floor, screaming and wailing that they thought they were on safari, not going to school. And, well, I felt like a jerk for duping them.

So now I have the same school-resistance problem with T-Rex, but obviously I’m not going to do the safari bait-and-switch again. I’ve got to plot some other response. Trouble is, dealing with T-Rex takes some serious maneuvering. A mini version of his grandfather, he’s every bit as smart—and stubborn.

I need a political strategist on this one. Where is David Axelrod when you need him?

I’ve already tried the appeal to sympathy:  {sigh} “C’mon sweetie-pie, you’re going to make mommy late for work.”

T-Rex: Glare. Pout.

And the appeal to reason. “T-Rex, you don’t have a choice here. Sometimes mommy and daddy don’t feel like going to work, but we have to. And you have to go to school.”

Frown. "I’m staying HERE!”

Tick tock, tick tock. Now I really am late for work.

I resort to coercion, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him to the door. “Look bucko! I don’t have time for this. Come ON!”

This, of course, prompts him to park himself on the floor and draw the most effective weapon in his arsenal: tears.

“I don’t.” [sniffle] “Wanna go.” [choke] “I don’t” [snort] “Liiiiiiiiike it theeeeere.”

Now, as planned, he’s got me. I can’t have tears, so I’ll have to try an extreme tactical shift. Even though it’s against my cynical nature, I opt for the pep talk.

I roll up my sleeves, sit next to him on the sofa, and ask if there's a problem at school. He shakes his head, no. Time to turn on the sunshine:

"T-Rex, sure you like it at playschool! You get to eat syrupy pancakes for breakfast. And sing songs. And play with the computer. And [I'm reaching now] and Ms. Johnson is there. She reeaaally likes T-Rex. You're her favorite!"

T-Rex considers this for a moment. Then he jumps off the sofa and gets all puffed up. "Oh yeah. I'm the best boy. I'm the strongest, big boy too. I'm Ms. Johnson's biggest boy of all. And I have really strong muscles." He flexes a bit, then puts on his jacket, all ready for school.

Touchdown! I'm dumbfounded that this tack actually worked. And I'm curious whether any of the strategies I tried are actually what experts recommend for tackling (in expert-speak) school refusal, AKA school phobia or school avoidance.

The American Academy of Pediatrics Web site confirms that yes, I was right to insist that he go to school; let a child stay home for no good reason, and the school refusal will only increase.

And, my asking him if there was a problem and playing up the positives of school are also recommended strategies of the site Phobics Awareness. Both sites also recommend speaking with a child's teachers about the problem—that's on my to-do list.

OK, I gotta admit, I was feeling pretty smug after I packed T-Rex off to school and read that I'd, for once, done all the right things. Small victories, folks. Small victories.

And I was still feeling pretty pleased when I went to pick up him up from Ms. Johnson's room after work. Unfortunately, it was not a happy scene. T-Rex was sitting in the corner, sulking, and Ms. Johnson looked, well, tense.

 
"What happened here?" I asked.

"Well, T-Rex got hold of my ink stamp pad, and stamped ALL of my report cards. I mean all of them. Stamps all over them. I'll have to get a whole new set."

Understandably, she was more than a little ticked off. We quickly made our apologies, and I hustled T-Rex out of there.

Crud. T-Rex had just single-handedly obliterated my "You're Ms. Johnson's favorite" tactic. Why am I not surprised?

Dispatch from Migraine Lane: What Really Causes a Headache?

10/22/2009

"I wanna be, your SLEDGEHAMMER!" my husband is belting out over Peter Gabriel in the kitchen. He's in there doing something useful, like caulking, or—I don't know—gluing the windows shut.

Me?

I'm sprawled on the sofa with a headache, feeling beat-up as the Public Option.

So I shouldn't begrudge him the singing, but…

"Oh let me be your SLEDGEHAMMER. This will be my TES-timony...."

Just what you need after a workday has kicked you in the head. And now, of course, the three-year-olds join in.

T-Rex stands on the arm of the sofa, bellows, "Momeeeee, Yucky-Man's gonna get yooooooo!" He's acting out the "Super Heroes vs. Super Villains" episode of the Backyardigans, which is blasting in the background. I knew we were in for this when he mastered the volume button on the remote.

"T-Rex, INSIDE voice please."

"Red alert. Danger! Red alert. Danger!" he screeches, and launches himself at my head.

"Ouch! T-Rex!"

"SLEDGE!" sings my husband.

"Mommeee, I did a poopoo and a peepee," trills Punk from his potty station in front of the TV. Oh fantastic.
 

I get off the sofa to investigate Punk's output, and wish I'd stayed put. On the biohazard index, this is a level five, Code Red, and at this point, so is my headache. Really, this is a job for the EPA, with all their special equipment and stuff.

"Moommeeee, I can help. Yucky-Man to the rescue!" yells T-Rex. He runs over and slams into the potty, very nearly setting off a toxic explosion.

 "SLEDGE!" from the kitchen.

Well this is fun. What I really want to do is let out a primal scream. But that wouldn't be good role-modeling of the inside-voice thing. Just another night on Migraine Lane.

It's all a hazy blur, but we eventually pack the kids off to bed. I crash on the sofa, arm draped over my forehead, and contemplate my headache.

I've got a chicken-or-egg question: Did my headache already exist—in a low-grade way—and then just get massively accelerated by the kids? Or was I susceptible after a long day at work, and them whomp, the kids brought it on?

As a cyberchondriac, I must, of course, look this up. But not right now. Right now, I. Just. Need. To. Sleep…….

The next morning, the headache is still back there, faintly knocking on the inside of my skull. It's what my parents call a "Lurking"—a hint of headache that should promptly be killed with a handful of Advil. Which I proceed to do.

Unfortunately, the Advil just nudges the Lurking a little further back in my head. It's not going away. So I go online. Time to conquer this thing with information.

To sum it up, there are three major headache types:

Tension—More often isolated than chronic, they cause mild to moderate, dispersed pain. The head feels like it's in a vise.

Cluster—Aptly named, they usually stab, like a hot poker, at one side of the face. The eye is often involved, and attacks tend to recur.

Migraine—Severe and chronic, they often herald their arrival with auras, which are flashes of light, blind spots, or limb tingling. Sufferers are sensitive to noise and light.

As far as I can tell, I don't get any one of these. I get a combination of the first and third. Tension headaches but with the noise and light sensitivity. Migraines but without the auras.

And it turns out that my medication of choice, Advil (a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, or NSAID), is recommended for migraines but not tension headaches. In fact, NSAIDs can actually cause tension headaches if overused. ?!

Where the heck does this leave me? I should take Advil but I shouldn't take Advil.
 

Seems to me that my only option here is to stop the headache before it starts. So back to the chicken-or-egg question of cause—click here for a Discovery Health video on the range of triggers.
 

For tension headaches, the origin is largely fatigue, stress and the chemical changes it sets off in the brain. For migraines, the list is longer: stress and fatigue, too, but also hormones (estrogen fluctuations with menstrual cycles, in particular), certain foods or drinks, certain smells or…..(drumroll please) NOISE.

So the answer to the question of headache causation is the chicken and the egg. Stress, hormones, foods—and yes, my boys' noise—can plant the seed of a headache, and they can also make it worse.

But some other key triggers are missing from the list. I'm thinking of petitioning the American Headache Society to add them. These include small boys hurling themselves at your head. Blaring children's programs. Potty incidents that go from bad to worse. Offers of "help" from three-year-olds.

Oh, and the song "Sledgehammer."

If I Were President There’d Be Child Care at Work

08/21/2009

It’s what every new, work-at-office mom dreads more than anything. More than the high-stakes PowerPoint presentation that freezes after five minutes. The crabby colleague kerfuffle. The string of reply-all e-mails that’s lost its beginning.

The grim reality of it sets in when, right in the rosy glow of second trimester, right after you’re finally done with the puking, your mother says, “So, it’s about time you started researching child care, huh?”

Oh crud. Oh no.

Oh yes, there’s no way around it. You’re faced with the dreaded prospect of Finding Good Childcare (FGC).

You put out feelers to your female colleagues with kids, and the news is not good. “Yeah, good luck with that,” is a typical response. Fellow moms are sympathetic, for sure, but also war-torn.  They, typically, have been battling with FGC for years—trying this and that, missing work, and worrying about being mommy-tracked.

Consider the options: You can hire a nanny for the price of another mortgage, especially when you add the insurance and vacation time that’s becoming standard.

Or you can try for an au pair, if you have the extra bedroom, a chunk of change, and the willingness to bet on someone who might think taking your child to watch beer pong is a great idea.

Then there are the nanny shares with other parents, which can save you money but mean a lot of schedule juggling. And if the nanny gets sick or quits? Whoops, you’re SOL.

That leaves one other FGC option: daycare. Ugh. We're talking staff shortages and germs passed around like hot sauce at a chili cook-off. And every time your kid picks up one of those germs, you have to miss work (more on this later).

Another problem with daycare is the mad daily dash to drop off and pick up the kids—and if you're a minute late to collect them, you get fined!

Weighing these dismal options, a good many moms (and dads) decide to stay home with the kids. The benefits are obvious: Guaranteed quality child care. Bonding time. No worries about germs, sick days, traffic, fines, or beer pong.

I'm not saying there aren't also some…issues with staying home. The more time you spend with children under five, the higher your risk of saying things like, "don't spill that" and "no snacks before dinner" to your friends. But the main problem is money.  Many families can't afford to have one adult stay at home, even if that spouse does contract work or runs a side business. In up to 70 percent of families, both adults work outside the home.

So, here comes my pitch. (Drumroll please.) I propose that all employers offer on-site child care. It's the perfect solution: Parents would no longer obsess about FGC because their kids' caregivers would be in the same building.

Gone would be the frantic day-care runs and sick-kid days. The employer's child-care center could nurse sick children in a separate sick ward. And imagine the reduction in parents' guilt about working. They now could see their kids throughout the day. Heck, they could even have lunch with them.

But I know you're thinking this plan is whacked. So let me counter some of the obvious objections:

• Co-workers won't want annoying kids running the halls. Fair enough. But no worries because the kids would be in a separate area of the building. It could even be sound-proofed. And parents would have to visit them at the center, not the other way around.

• It would cost too much. Actually it could cost less, but it would likely take government backing in the form of incentives or subsidies to employers and cooperatives or exchanges. (I'm not saying government-run—for those worried about more rowdy townhall meetings.) Employers could also help fund it as a retention strategy—just like they do retirement and health benefits. And employees using it would pay into it.

• You can't have sick kids around healthy kids. You wouldn't. Sick kids would go straight to the sick ward, where they'd be nursed back to health. Meanwhile, mom and dad could be right around the corner to check on the kid and go to meetings.

Some companies are already doing on-site child care, without any external subsidies. They include AstraZeneca, Allstate, and Aflac, and I applaud them.

Seriously, workplace child care would have made all the difference to me over the past three years. Just this past week my husband and I took turns missing work when our three-year-old twins spiked fevers and puked repeatedly. Then daycare barred T-Rex from returning without a doctor's note because of an invisible rash and "swelling." (Personally, I just think they wanted a vacation.)

Stuff was blowing up at work the whole time that I had a toddler intermittently ralphing, spraying sugar all over the kitchen, and shooting hoops with a snow globe. Plus I worried I might be seen as playing the sick-kid card.

That's when I started dreaming about child care at work. And the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Who's with me?