Do you want to know if my daughter has mumps? Yeah, me too.

Yes, tomorrow morning at 10:30am it will be a full week since the nurse drew blood from Skyler to test for mumps. And not one single person has called me to tell me the outcome of that test. And, yes I have called them. I called on Monday and was told as soon as they know they will call me. I sent her back to school on Tuesday. If there is an outbreak of the mumps at her school I think you all know who’s number I’ll be giving out. It sure as hell won’t be mine. And you better believe there will be words exchanged at Justis’ toe recheck appointment next week. I want to look my doctor in the eye when I ask him why his care for my family has plummeted.

Medical care costs have skyrocketed in the last few years. Since my insurance changed with my company I’ve gone from paying $10 co-pays to 30% of the bill. So now I’m paying more and getting less care. In fact I’m paying my doctor but getting most of my medical advice from the internet.

My doctor is not in the network, but I’ve stuck with him because up until recently, I have really trusted his opinion. Plus they always get us in on the same day we call. He knows us by name without looking at our chart. And he and his wife [who is also a doctor and partners with him in his practice] have twins who are just a couple of years older then my twins, so they give good advice on the unique twin issues [like whether they should be in the same class or not].

We’ve been going to him since he was just out of medical school. He even called my aunt one weekend because he had just returned from a conference where he learned about a new treatment that he thought might help her. Back then he was fresh and caring and all about helping his patients.

But something has gone amiss in the last three months. It may not necessarily be him, but something is going downhill…fast. The ball is getting dropped somewhere. And I have little patience for dropped balls.

I’m going to give him one talking to and if things don’t change maybe we’ll have to part ways. It’s not going to take much for me to switch to a cheaper doctor in my network. If I’m going to get below standard care I might as well not pay top dollar for it.

But that being said…..

My anxiety is at an all time high because Skyler will indeed be having surgery. Our ENT will be removing her tonsils on April 19th. Surgery. On my little girl. I can’t bear the thought.

I know it’s routine surgery. And she will be a whole new girl without her tonsils. The doctor said he thinks Skyler rarely [if ever] reaches deep sleep. And if we don’t remove her tonsils the lack of good sleep with catch up with her sooner then later.

Apparently they rate tonsils on a scale from 1 to 4; a 4 meaning the tonsils are touching. Her right tonsil is a 4 and her left tonsil is a 3.5. It doesn’t get much worse then that.

I told him she’s a good eater. He said she must chew up her food really well because it’s got to be difficult for her to swollow.

I asked him what purpose our tonsils served. He said back in the days of cavemen they probably had some important function, but much like the appendix and gall bladder, the tonsils really don’t have an important function now. He said they do help with immunity a little bit. But in Skyler’s case the benefits of removing her tonsils far outweigh the little tiny boost in immunity her tonsils are giving her now.

So choking back tears, I agreed to the surgery. And we scheduled it for the morning of April 19th. Skyler will have to miss a week of school. [Which she will hate.] She’ll be on a strict diet of ice cream, milkshakes and pudding. [I'm sure that will just break her heart. ;)] And she will have to drink lots of fluids that week.

The doctor said we should make a game out of it. Like every time Patrick says “Spongebob” she drinks or something like that. Skyler hardly ever watches TV though so we’ll have to come up with some other type of game.

I never thought I’d be brainstorming drinking games for my six-year-old. I vaguely remember a few back from my early twenties. Maybe a dice game. Isn’t 10 a social? Or a card game. Up and down the river perhaps. Oh wait, maybe that’s not the type of drinking game he was talking about.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 29th, 2006 at 11:41 pm and is filed under A day in our life. Comments are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.