On the hunt...

For a new pediatrician that is. 

As I said in my last post, we made an appointment with Nicholas' pediatrician for this morning.  He was extremely irritable, screaming at all hours of the day and night, hardly getting any sleep at all, had horrible gas pains, his eczema has gotten out of control and he was scratching like crazy, his reflux symptoms were beginning to return and to top it all off last night he ended up having a fever of 101.5, not horrible but not great either. 

So this morning I got him ready to head to the doctor's office.  (To say that I wasn't looking forward to it would be an understatement.  When we first visited his office, this doctor seemed amazing.  He listened to what we had to say and tried to help to the best of his abilities; however, this didn't last.  The ways things are now, he take his time and listens to all concerns when my husband is able to attend the appointment, when I am by myself he is a completely different doctor.  One who doesn't have the time and acts as though he is being inconvenienced by the fact that someone actually made an appointment to see him.)  I expected this appointment to take a little while since there were quite a few things I needed to discuss with the doctor, i.e. medications, symptoms, temperature.  I was in and out in 10 minutes with a new prescription.

The entire time Nicholas and I were there, I basically felt as though we were taking up too much of his time and causing an inconvenience.  Rather than looking at my child and trying to determine what the problem might be I got "well it's probably this so here is a prescription, give it a try and if things don't improve within the week give us a call."  With that he handed me his prescription and left the room.  (Oh, he did look in Nicholas' ears while making the comment, "well we'll take a look in here so that if you go home and he has a fever, you won't think it's another ear infection.")

I couldn't say anything, actually I just sat there for a minute trying to process what had just happened.  Now I know that this isn't just in my head.  As we were leaving the office, the receptionist asked if I needed to schedule a follow-up appointment.  My immediate response was no, we won't be back. 

I took my child to one of the most highly recommended doctors at one of the nation's best children's hospitals thinking that he would get the care he deserved, I guess I was wrong.  So now we are on the hunt for a new pediatrician.  I am truly beginning to understand what all the mothers I spoke with while pregnant meant when they said that you have to be an advocate for your child.  They were absolutely right.