The Medical Wrangling

So I know I haven't gotten into the "what's wrong with the little one?" discussion yet, but there are a couple other aspects of the whole experience I want to go through first. Not that these are the most important things, but maybe there are things to learn through all this.

When the general pediatrician first identified a problem she wanted to refer us to a specialist, a pediatric neurologist. There isn't one in her general practice and her practice has a contract that refers us up to the city. Given the other options in our area, that really wasn't our first choice. We'd rather be closer to home and closer to what we believed our better experts. But this is how our insurance went. She needed to send us to someone "in contract". Having never had any real significant medical issues before, this had never been something I looked at during open enrollment. From now on, not only will I have to look at where my primary care services come from, but the specialists as well. Hopefully, most of you don't have to do that.

We were happy that the neurologist was able to fit us in his schedule right away. We haven't been that happy with him since then. He seems intelligent, but it's clear to him, this is a "case" rather than a family going a little nuts because the little one is sick. He has said a few things that really aren't the best bedside manner.

One thing that really irked me is when he said he would drop by the hospital the next day to see us. I stayed at the hospital that night and the next day. I asked the nurses and they said he usually dropped by in the early afternoon. Pretty much all day I didn't go anywhere becasuse I wanted to be sure that I didn't miss him. He didn't show up until 7:30 at night. Instead of going to the store or just a walk, I watched football all day. I suffered through the entire Cal-USC game because there wasn't much else to do. Pretty rude.

One last thing about the doctors. I guess it's fair that all the doctors have their own opinions. The developmental pediatrician doesn't look at the same things as the radiologist, or the neurologist. They all have different specialties. Some are telling us that it's going to be really bad. And others telling us not so bad. With treatment and therapy things will be a lot better. In other words we're hoping for the best, but realistically, we have no idea who to believe right now. I guess none of us really have a crystal ball in these matters.