By Rachel Langston
What is it about the front door of a pediatrician’s office that turns an otherwise pitiful, lethargic, feverish child into a perky, babbling, vivacious being? Not once or twice, but three times THIS WEEK, I have watched this amazing phenomenon with my own children. Never mind that I only have two children.
We didn’t ring in the New Year in the emergency room but we arrived there about 12:30 a.m. because one of my children had swallowed a watch battery earlier that evening. At first, I was content to just let the battery pass naturally. That was until I started reading about “battery ingestion” on the Internet and realized that there is such a thing as the National Button Battery Ingestion Hotline. I called the hotline and they indicated that I MUST have my child x-rayed so that we could make sure that the battery had not gotten lodged and started eroding. By the time we had the x-ray and saw the Dr., my child was laughing and bouncing off the wall. The biggest impression that the whole experience made was that we stayed up all night and watched TV while we were waiting.
Just 3 days later, I took that same child to the Dr. because he had been running fever. Prior to the trip to the Dr., this child had been willing to stay in bed (and had done so) for most of the week before. After we walked into the office, this child immediately transformed into the most personable person around. There was NO fever, NO cough, NO sneezing. The nurse just looked at me. I am sure she was wondering why I was there!
At 8:45 a.m. this morning, I was back at the Dr. with child #2. While we waited, there was singing, talking, invention of games and an explanation of the pain chart for me. This was NOT the same child that awakened me at 2:22 a.m. with a fever of 104!
I am not one of those mothers that runs my children to the Dr. every time they sniffle. In fact, if our pediatrician is not working that day, I have been known put off a trip until I can see him. In these cases, my children DID need to go, even if they didn’t act like they were sick once they got there. As for the battery, it was not lodged and it passed quickly. Both visits to the doctor’s office resulted in prescriptions for antibiotics so there was some indication that my children actually HAD been feeling bad, no matter what they acted like in the office!
Copyright, RPL Communications, 2007
