August 10, 2011

Dreadful Day at the Doctor

Owen turned 15 months old last Thursday and on Friday we went to our scheduled well baby appointment.  The weather was dark and dreary and rainy and it was just one of those days where you didn't even want to leave the house.  I actually called Ryan to see if he thought I should reschedule due to the bad weather, but ultimately I just decided to go and get it over and done.

This new office was not nearly as warm and inviting as our pediatrician's office in Greenville was.  There were chairs lining all the walls, magazines for the adults, and nothing but a small tv hung in one of the corners of the room to attempt to entertain the little ones.  Not that either of my boys would have paid attention anyway when there was a new scene to explore, but they were showing one of those annoying pre-teen shows on Nickelodeon when the average age of the patients in the waiting room was about 24 months.

So I go up the the window to check in while both boys start going crazy in this wide open, empty waiting room.  I'm trying to answer questions and find insurance cards all while coaxing both boys down from on top of the furniture.  Owen was climbing the tables and Austin was jumping off chairs.  They were like two monkeys in the wild!  I had never seem them like this before in a public place, and we weren't even 5 minutes into our visit.  I could already feel myself breaking into a cold sweat.

I finally got my clipboard of paperwork and was going to sit down when Owen walked up to me smacking his lips.  Considering this child will eat just about anything besides the healthy meals I prepare for him every day, I instinctively reached my fingers in his mouth and, much to my surprise, pull out.....a breath mint.  Awesome.  Not only was there a choking hazard lying somewhere in the waiting room, but eagle-eye Owen picked it up and tried to eat it.  At this point I'm just praying it fell out of someones pocket and not their mouth...

Now I'm just trying to concentrate on filling out this new patient paperwork which is proving to be quite impossible because Austin has noticed that I'm writing and continues to insist that I spell words like Boo Boo, Monster Truck, Cars, School Bus, Door, Chair, Doctor, etc. etc.  I finally cave and agree to let him write his name on the back of one of the pages.  He writes his first few letters too big and runs our of room to finish his name and in true two-year-old fashion, a temper tantrum breaks out and you would have thought I just told him that Lightening McQueen and Mater died.  Meanwhile, I look over at Owen who is now squatting on the floor in front of me and, yep, there's no mistaking it, he's got the poop face.  Moments later the smell permeates the waiting room and I do my best to grab both boys and hurry to find a changing room.

We make it back to the waiting room after wrestling through a diaper change and as soon as I sit down with my clipboard to try and finish the first half of page 1 of 4, Owen's name is called.  We get back to the room, Owen is weighed and measured and then the nurse tells me she's going to take his temperature...rectally.  It caught me off guard and certainly did Owen as well!  Luckily, Austin was too busy trying to roll the paper that was lining the table back up and didn't notice a thing.

So, I'm trying to talk to the doctor all while holding a struggling Owen and trying to block out Austin's constant interruptions.  Seriously...the boy hardly said a word until he was 18 months old and now he barely stops talking long enough to breathe!  Apparently Austin didn't take too kindly to the cold shoulder, however, because the next thing I know, a golf ball is whizzing across the room and hitting the wall, coming dangerously close to the window in front of us.  All of a sudden I'm seriously regretting hiding the golf ball Austin found on the floor the other day in the diaper bag...

Finally it's time for Owen's exam and I'm holding him in my lap as he's getting checked out.  In trying to get him to cooperate for the doctor, I kind of lose sight of Austin when all of a sudden I look over and see him using a stool to try and climb on the counter where I placed my pen and clipboard of paperwork.  Of course, before I can say a word, he sees me watching him, gets scared and falls off the chair and onto the floor bumping his head on the wall on the way down.  The doctor jumped up and grabbed him while I held onto Owen and quickly checked him over to make sure he was ok.  I was a couple seconds away from a panic attack, but Austin was fine.

The weather was still pretty bad outside and getting worse by the second.  We were sitting there one minute and then see a bright flash of lightning immediately followed by a loud clap of thunder and suddenly...darkness.  The lights came back on a few seconds later, but shortly after, a nurse came into our room to notify us that the power outage caused all their systems to reboot and we wouldn't be able to get Owen his shots today.  If this visit wasn't bad enough, now we get to go back in another week!!

At least it was finally time to leave.  I scribbled thorough the remaining paperwork while holding Owen on my hip at the checkout desk.  Austin had one final meltdown (because he had to get a Mater sticker when he wanted Mack), and with no patience left, I grabbed him by his hand and pulled him out the door.  We all walked to the car in a monsoon with no umbrella and after finally getting both kids buckled in their car seats, I sit down in the car absolutely soaking wet.  Kind of a perfect end to the most horrible doctor's office visit ever.


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