Skip to main content

...of latrophobia

My vocabulary did not include the word "latrophobia" five seconds ago, but I googled "fear of doctors" and now it does.  

We took the kids to the American Hospital of Dubai yesterday for well checks and immunizations.  Selah is quite far behind and Abram never had his two year check.  In Austin we went to the doctor all of the time.  Like, too much, probably.  80% of the time it was necessary.  The other 20% happened mainly in the first few months of Abram's life when I was a paranoid new mother.  He had bronchitis quite a few times and has even been to the doctor here twice before yesterday.  But it's been about five months (praise God!) since the last visit and both kids were not happy about the outing. 

I tried to prepare Abram by telling him that we were going to the doctor before we left so that he wouldn't be surprised.  He kept telling me that he didn't want to go to the doctor, he wanted to go to the grocery store.  I just kept saying, "Me too, buddy."  When we finally got inside the exam room, we discovered it was sterile and not kid friendly at all.  That was a big negative in Quinn's book.  Abram was crying even before anyone even hinted at having to do anything at all to him.  Getting him on the scale took forever.   Lying him down and taking his pants off?  Well, you can imagine.  Both the doctor and the nurse were pretty unfriendly and made us both wonder if pediatrics was their second choice profession.  Quinn was really not keen on the doctor we found.  I chose him because he had been trained in and worked in America.  But our pediatrician in Austin was the cat's pajamas and I don't think anyone will ever hold a candle to him (Ross Prochnow at ARC Quarry Lake, Austin friends!!) So we'll probably just always be unhappy with anyone else.  

Anyway, both kids cried during the check up that consisted of weighing, measuring, and listening and that was pretty much it.  Luckily they had no idea what was coming with the shot (they each just got one, thankfully).  It is pretty much the worst thing in the world to hold your child, knowing what is about to happen when they have no idea and then someone stabs them with a needle.  I'll admit it: I cried too.  But they survived.  Selah just got a lot of snuggles and Abram got the promise of ice cream.  We didn't make good on the promise until today when we ate cookies and ice cream in honor of my dad's birthday (Happy birthday, Papa!)  I was pretty impressed that Abram was able to hold out that long without losing it.  

So we are supposed to get a booster for Abram in a month and Selah is so far behind, we really need to do another one for her soon.  But vaccinations are expensive, man!  We may have to research other options than the American Hospital.  It was a little pricey just for the consult and it fell short in bedside manner of all the staff, for sure.  I mean, they took the kids measurements, but then didn't even give me anything with the numbers on it.  I was so busy comforting my traumatized children that I only briefly made note of each of their weights.  Selah was just over 8kg and Abram was just over 12.  That's almost 18 lbs for Selah (she's dropping down to join her brother's growth curve around the 10th percentile) and about 26.5 lbs for Abram. So apparently they are doing ok.  I wasn't expecting anything much out of this appointment.  But I felt that I needed to have them seen, since it had been awhile and our insurance pays for up to a certain amount for well checks every year, so I wanted to take advantage of that.

I'm hoping it's not that emotional for them every time they go to the doctor.  But if I had to chose between being comfortable at the doctor because we were going a lot or being afraid of the doctor because we hadn't been in awhile, I'd chose the latter. So, I guess, praise God for latrophobia!!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

... of the tipping point

 I haven't blogged in so very long, I can't remember when and I'm not going to stop this thought train to go and check. Suffice it to say, it's been awhile. But I showed up here to share (and document) a major event in the life of our family.  Before Moses came home, I would see adoptive families posting about their kiddos' "Tipping Point Days". I recently heard it called something else as well, but I'm too tired to think of it right now. Basically, it is the day when your adopted child has been with you for as long as they were not  with you. For kids that were adopted at 1 or 2 or 3, that seems to come quickly and maybe feels eventful, but not monumental. Well, when we got custody of Moses he was about 4 years and 9 months old. I remember coming back to America and seeing someone in my adoption group post about their 2 or 3 year old's Tipping Point Day and thinking I should figure out when Moses's would be. So I did. I sat down and figured ou

...of my ER defense

Many of you may have been reading the updates about Abram's "condition" on Facebook. As I contemplated putting up the information about what was going on for all the world to see, I have to confess that I was thinking that everyone was going to think I was crazy. "Her kid can't stand up for a day and all of a sudden she's going to the emergency room right at bedtime?" Well, I'm here to justify myself (although I realize there really isn't a need for that, based on the amount of wonderful support I got from people) and tell you a little bit of what I learned - for those of you who might be interested in some medical knowledge you may not have known. Just so you know, I did not take pictures of this event, so there are none here to see. Pictorial documentation of your child's first ER visit isn't something you think of until after you leave with the assurance that everything is probably going to be ok. Looking back, there was a lot of

... of a patent

... or maybe, just maybe , I'm jumping the gun :) A good friend told me the other day that she and her husband have been leaving church after the worship because she can't sit for an extended time in the folding chairs. Our church did a great thing and bought inexpensive folding chairs for our sanctuary in order to 1)save money and 2)be able to use the empty room for community type events in the neighborhood during the week. This is awesome. I support their decision and so does my friend who is leaving after the worship (and watching the previous week's sermon from home). But she is pregnant. She already had back problems and now (of course!) they are worse. My back is just starting to bother me and I know that there are many pregnant women with back problems and normal people with back problems who whimper inside a little every time they enter a room and see folding chairs. Until now, I had just sort of reconciled myself to the fact that sitting in a folding chair was