Telling off Doctors, Snubbing Patients, and Assaulting Dentists

Ok... that title is not my favourite, but I just couldn't seem to come up with something that would truly capture what has been going on in my corner of the universe lately.

Plus, it's 4:30am right now, and my brain just isn't happy to be awake and has decided to operate at 50% in protest.

You see... in the 11 months since my son was born, I had become quite used to late night/early morning wakings, and that was when I would fit in my blog writing.  If, however, you have been a regular follower of flippity floo, you will have noticed I've been kind of MIA.  Well, this is because Knolan has started sleeping through the night!!  Woo hoo!

I guess this means that I'll have to find another way to keep this blog alive, though.  Finding another time in the day to write has been a big challenge, unfortunately, but since I do enjoy documenting my family's exploits and my fondest memories, I'm sure I'll figure out a way to do it.

Anyway, after that little update... on to blogging!

I am finding myself awake because my little girl's had a rough go of things today and my mommy radar is compelling me to go check on her frequently.  Actually, she's had a rough go of things over the last month, really.  It started with some sort of stomach flu that never seemed to end at the beginning of May, then some wicked abdominal pains that culminated in an appendicitis scare a week or two ago, and then yesterday she had a terrible allergic reaction to some bug bites.

But, as is her way, Kaycie managed to make us laugh many times this month, and most of the laughter has come from her interaction with doctors, hospital staff, and other patients.

(ok... fell asleep writing this last night, but I'm back!  Kaycie is resting on the couch, and awesomely, Knolan is having a super long snooze!)

For example, when we took her to the ER after a doctor at the walk-in clinic was concerned she might have appendicitis (or a kidney problem, or a lymph node infection - as you can imagine, we were trying very hard not to freak!), we had waited, and waited, and waited to see a doctor.  Kaycie was miraculously being a very, very patient patient given that it was waaay past her bedtime.  But, as is her way, the more tired she got, the more interesting her interactions with people became.

There was the imaginary ice cream shop that Kaycie set up for the custodial staff who came by regularly to say hi to her.  It was a bit like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, as no one was permitted to choose their own flavour.  No one.

There was also the invitation to the X-ray technician to come and draw unicorns with her.

But everyone's favourite (and by favourite, I mean every single person within earshot of the nursing station) quip, though, had to be during her chat with the ER doctor.  Kaycie had just come back from the washroom, and kind of veered off into the nursing station to check it out.  I quickly tried to divert her back to her hospital bed, but the ER doctor stopped us and said to Kaycie, "Wow... you look super summery in those flip flops!  You look like you are ready for summer!"  Kaycie's response?

"Well.... I'm just going to go back to my room now.  You probably should go do your work." 

The entire group of nurses burst into peals of uncontrollable laughter, and the harassment of the doctor started immediately.  The nurses took great pleasure in reminding him that he was slacking and he had to endure several suggestions to "get back to work".  The doctor came by later to assure Kaycie that he was working hard, and to caution Ken and me that we should brace ourselves for her teenage years. 

Fast forward to yesterday, we found ourselves in the ER again with Kaycie.  She had a terrible allergic reaction to some bug bites, and to make a long story short, after a second trip to the walk-in clinic in one day, we were advised to go to the hospital.

Here are a couple of pictures of our little munchkin's face after she had her reaction and then again this morning - she was bit on the cheek and on her chest by something in our backyard. We'll probably never know what it was, but I sure wish I did know!  It made her eye swell almost completely shut.

Last night

This morning

She was a little trooper, and I have to say that the staff at the hospital were WONDERFUL and made her feel like a little princess.  After Kaycie gave the intake nurse a rambling and precocious review of her bug bite journey, they became fast friends.  The nurse paraded Kaycie around, introducing her to all the staff as her little "12 year old in a 4 year old's body".  Kaycie was wearing a ring with a pink plastic heart shaped gem on it, and all of the women in the ER ooohed and ahhhed over it as Kaycie told them that she was going to get married to her friend Marcus AND to her brother.  Kaycie was predictably thrilled with all of the attention, and thankfully, it took her mind off her eye.

However, once we were assigned a hospital bed, we discovered we were sharing a room with an elderly woman.  She looked very tired, but she weakly smiled and waved to Kaycie.  That would have been just fine, however, after a minute or two, this woman's family arrived with great fanfare.  Things went a bit downhill from there.  :-)

This woman's daughter and her husband were VERY interested in Kaycie's eye.  They asked me many, many, many, MANY questions about what happened.  But this part was craaa-zyyy:  As soon as they heard it was a bug bite, the daughter gasped and threw her leg up on Kaycie's bed and whipped her pant leg up to tell us about her own bug bite, and apparently to reveal THE hairiest leg I have ever seen!

Now, I do realize it's only natural, and I'm also pretty sure I personally know some women who choose not to shave their legs, but I think that the novelty of having a perfect stranger plop her leg in front of me with more hair than I'd ever seen was too much for me!  But it wasn't just that... she put her leg down and dramatically hoisted it up on the bed at least 3 times.  The fourth time, she concluded that I needed to treat Kaycie's bite with mustard oil 3 times a day.  What?

Then the daughter started poking Kaycie's tummy vigorously and saying, "Do you not eat anything?  Is your tummy empty? Do you want me to go get you something to eat?  What do you want?  What do you want to eat?  A chicken burger?  You want a chicken burger!"

Lucky for me I find it fairly easy to be polite to weirdos, so I gently thanked them and declined their kind, but bizarre offer.  And then I pulled Kaycie closer to me to avoid further tummy prodding (?!?!).

The best part came next, though.  Kaycie gestured wildly at me to come close to her.  So, I bent down and put my ear close to her mouth as she completely UN-subtly "loud-whispers" in my ear for all to hear:

"MOM... CAN YOU PULL THE CURTAIN CLOSED SO THAT I DON'T HAVE TO TALK TO THESE PEOPLE ANY MORE?  ALSO, I DON'T WANT THEM TO CATCH A FEVER."

Oh boy... I know kids can sometimes get away with saying stuff like this while coming off as cute, but this couple and their mom were hard for me to read.  I kind of held my breath as I looked up to see their faces.  What I saw was HILARIOUS!  They are both looking at me, rubbing their hands together Monty Burns style, wide eyed with anticipation, excitedly asking, "What did she say?  What did she say?"

So, I truthfully said that she wanted me to close the curtain so that she wouldn't give them a fever.  Phew!  I have no idea how they didn't hear her, but I yanked that curtain closed pronto!

I'm telling you... I meet interesting people all the time!

And now on to assaulting dentists.  My daughter wasn't the only one spreading her special brand of affection in the health care industry.  I, too, am guilty this week.

I recently switched dentists, and so I went to an appointment with her this week to chart my teeth and review my x-rays.  I generally feel pretty safe and secure at the dentist office, but this time around, I had been experiencing some pretty serious pain when I flossed between 2 particular teeth.

So, when the dentist came in to start charting and poking around, I was very deliberate about pointing out to her that I had this particular issue.  I showed her exactly where it was, and I described in detail to her that there is no problem when I insert the dental floss between my teeth, but that when I pull the floss back out, there is excruciating pain.  I even used miming motions to articulate my point with as much flair as possible!

My dentist assured me that she was grateful that I pointed this out, and that she wanted to take a look.  So, she grabs a stretch of dental floss, and slides it between the offending teeth.  Just as she does so, I remind her to be gentle (slight control issues?).  Then she just throws caution to the wind and whips that floss right back out as fast as it went in.

And that's when I did it. 

 Via

I punched my dentist in the head.  Much to our mutual surprise, I might add!

I kind of wish I could make a diagram of this.  Wait... maybe I can use Paint.

Aha!  Success!  Here is an artistic rendition of my assault:

I am the one with the ample chest and the flowing hair, and the dentist is the one who is flourishing the strand of floss with a sad face.  You will see from the diagram and the helpful arrows that my knee-jerk (arm-jerk?) reaction to the AGONIZING PAIN was to whip my clenched hand upwards and backwards, thereby striking the dentist in the head.

She was very understanding, and I must have apologized a million times.  The crummy ending to the story is that she can't figure out why I'm getting this kind of pain, so she's going to have to try a couple of things to see what will work.  Awesome.

So there you have it, the verbal berating of an ER doctor, the snubbing of the wacky roommates, and a dental throw-down.  We're good people... I swear!!!