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Fear of Doctors

By Anonymous

Today Landon will be making his third trip to the pediatrician in 7 days. That's a new record for us. He went back on Wednesday because he'd been up crying/screaming all night on Monday and Tuesday (the lack of sleep, and what it's doing to me, is hard to put into words). Somehow, despite the daily antibiotics since Friday, the ear infection had spread to his other ear. He got a shot of a different antibiotic and his amoxycillin dosage was increased slightly. He slept through the night that night (hooray! that's only the FIFTH time since he was BORN) and then was up crying from 2 to 4 AM this morning. (It really kills the cozy, romantic Valentine's buzz you had going when your baby wakes up screaming an hour and a half after you both went to sleep...) I talked to the pediatrician this morning and she said it really can't be his ears- those antibiotics would have killed any infection, and since everything else looked good when she examined him two days ago, it was likely just tempermental. He's gotten used to being up with us at night again (was he ever not used to it?) and wants the party to continue. She did throw out reflux as another possible, though unlikely, reason for his nighttime crying, so she suggested we give him the Prevacid again for a couple days just to see if that changes anything. I accepted that as it did seem like the crying was only at night, but I wished it was something she could fix for us.

Then Maya called an hour ago and said Landon was crying all morning and seemed very uncomfortable, so I called the pediatrician's office again and now we have an appointment for 1pm. I talked to JP and he was glad to hear we were getting in before the weekend, but admitted it made him nervous. What if they find something wrong with Landon and blame it on us (him) again? It's scary to take him to the doctor now and I hate that. I've always loved and trusted doctors and now I'm afraid of accusations and tests revealing broken bones or other things that could seem like abuse -- of course, if something is wrong with him we want to find out what it is, and I really don't think anything is broken, but still, it's scary each time he's examined. Once again we'd have no explanation and a social services history to go along with it.

Speaking of social services, our in-tact family services caseworker came by this morning. Our file was supposed to be closed in December, but it's taking them forever and apparently as long as the file is open, they have to visit at least once a month. He assured me it would be closed by the first week of March. Why on earth it takes 12 weeks to close a file is beyond me, but supposedly it will happen someday. JP got a letter from DCFS notifying him that his appeal pre-hearing is set for February 27th. I'm not sure what a pre-hearing involves, but he's talking to our lawyer to find out. I hate, hate, hate that they are still involved in our lives and I still use the freaking "nightmare" label.

Most of the time we forget it even happened. Most of the time Landon is a normal, cheerful, smiling baby and we are a normal, busy, happy family. Most of the time.

Full post as published by Lag Liv on February 15, 2008 (boomark / email).