Wasted Morning

The night before we were leaving for the weekend, Anna woke up at 1am crying. She continued to wake up every 30-45 minutes crying for the rest of the night. When I could get her to tell me what was wrong, she said her ear was hurting. By 4am I knew that I would be taking her to immediate care before we left town.

Thankfully, my Dad was able to stay with the other children on short notice. I took Anna to immediate care and the Doctor told us the pain was from some dry wax that was pushing on a membrane inside her ear. He washed her ear out and told us to use some drops and come back the following week so that he could clean the rest of the wax out of her ear.

I used the drops all weekend and gave Anna Motrin at night. The next 2 nights she still had times that she was uncomfortable, but after that, has been fine.

When we got home I had an internal battle over whether I was going to follow though with this follow up "appointment." The Doctor told me that he would be at the immediate care center on Monday and Tuesday. I decided that it would be best to be responsible and make sure everything was taken care of for Anna. I did not want to lose another night's sleep! Tuesday morning Anna was very unhappy that we had to go to the doctor again. She fussed and carried on. I told her that it was my responsibility as her Mother to make sure that she was healthy--so we were going. She settled down. Given some other things that were happening during the week, I did not have a babysitter and took all 4 children with me into immediate care.

The herd of us walked in. I may have seen some panic in the eyes of the receptionist. I told her we were there for a follow up and we signed in. She seemed a bit skeptical when I said follow up. We sat down and immediately another lady in the waiting room asked me if I homeschool. I told her yes. She then told me that she homeschooled her 6 children and for the next half hour told me her views on all manner of things in relation to homeschool and teenage children. After 30 minutes she was called back--the first person to be called back since we had walked in.

After another 30 minutes no one else had been called back. There was still another person who had arrived before us and my children were getting squirrely. Appropriately so. Isaiah was at the window *loudly* exclaiming over every bird and bug her saw in the flower garden. And banging on the window. When he started jumping off his seat and sprawling on the floor for fun my blood pressure started in increase. The other 3 were appropriately quiet, but understandably, getting impatient. I finally decided this was getting a bit ridiculous and asked the receptionist if she would wait with 4 children in tow. She said no. I explained why I was there. She said, "well if she isn't having any pain I wouldn't worry about it." I again explained that the doctor had instructed me to come back on this day for a follow up because of reasons I explained. She offered to go talk to the doctor which I watched her do. She came back and told me, "He said that if she isn't having any discomfort he doesn't need to see her." I was annoyed--really annoyed.

I walked my children out to the came with as much grace as I could muster. Here I had told Anna in no uncertain terms that she had to cooperate and it turned out that she didn't see the doctor. We were all out of sorts when we got home--I sent the kids outside to play and I made s'more mix (1 box of Golden Grahams cereal, 1 bag of marshmallows, and 1 bag of chocolate chips). It's quite addicting and I ate plenty!

I don't like the feeling of completely wasted time and effort. It bugged me all day. Aliza tried to help me feel better. She said that I was a gift to the lady who needed to talk. Hopefully I was. That would redeem the time a bit.