A few weeks ago the nurses bundled up a whole pile of  medical stuff,

procedural paraphernalia  and handed it to me.

It was time for me to take on the accessing of Ivy’s port full time.

The choice was kind of, sort of taken out of my hands.

As it turns out it’s been okay,

if we forget about the whole emotional side to it and focus on the practical.

It’s limited the time we need to be going into the hospital anyway,

which, if your hospital is anything like my hospital,

is a good thing.

It takes an hour to get there from The Boonies

and then sometimes

another hour to find parking for the big white bus

so avoiding that

and avoiding having to drag two kids into, what is essentially an adult world

has been good.

A relief.

A break

and we’ve been motoring along quite nicely

but

there is always that fine line of control, isn’t there?

So it came to pass, this weekend just gone

that the nurses started to make murmurings of our having to come into the infusion lounge.

They didn’t want to access her

I could do that

but for policy and procedure purposes we had to come in to see a doctor.

A review, they called it.

I understand that.

I do but finding a day to squeeze in a trek to the hospital

among presentation days,

meetings

and end of school celebrations

is no mean feat

but yesterday we made the journey,

found a parking space virtually at the front door of the hospital

and made our way in.

It was really nice to see the nurses, touch base and talk with them

but as I am sitting here, typing

I am still left wondering what the point of seeing the doctor was.

He sauntered over

didn’t introduce himself (a pet hate of mine)

and asked me when the paed was going to review her.

When I shrugged and told him probably next year

he said that Ivy would need to be reviewed before that.

(I thought that was the whole point of coming into the hospital in the first place).

Ivy could not possibly stay on the hefty dose of antibiotics she was currently on

and if there was no infection in her ears then it would probably be good to consider a trial off them.

Did I think that I could relay all of that to the paed?

He then bent down and looked at the side of her face and declared her left ear clear.

Now, I’m not sure

but I thought you needed an otoscope to look at the drum of an ear.

Maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe he turned on his x – ray vision and I didn’t notice.

He then said,

“well, there is not a lot that I can do until the paed reviews her” and walked away.

This is where I let out my long frustrated sigh with the medical world that we find ourselves a part of.

Scream with me if you want.

For a start;

Ivy has trialed off her ‘hefty dose’ of antibiotics several times

with dire results.

She won’t be doing that again any time soon

and I would like to know how that doctor,

who didn’t introduce himself,

who didn’t know Ivy at all,

who didn’t examine her – didn’t even lay hands on her

can seriously write in her notes that he had reviewed the girl

and I am struggling to understand why we needed to travel all the way in there for that;

for the threat of taking the antibiotics away if we did not chase the paed into his own examination of ears

that I know are clear.

I’d like to know why being the go between for doctors of varying specialties has become my job over the course of the year.

Don’t they teach fledgling doctors how to use a phone these days

I’m sure even email would be an effective communication tool.

Perhaps they are just too busy to call each other

and like the world at large, think that I have nothing but time on my hands.