Adenoids No More

Felicity had her adenoids removed today.  It went as well as it could, really well.  She is up in bed, she took a nap today, she had a pretty good day, considering.

We had to be at the surgery center at 6:30, which is ridiculous, right?  Especially as they didn't do the surgery until like EIGHT O'CLOCK.  It took two seconds to sign in and pay ($414, which is our 15% coinsurance, which used to be 10% when it was called a copay.  Insurance companies = scumbags), and then I went back and they weighed her - so cleverly - on her BED, isn't that smart?  When I took her to have her tubes, *I* had to weigh myself and then weigh with her, ugh.  Anyway, they weighed her and took her temperature and then we waited for like an hour.

Her doctor came in and said hi, then we waited some more and in the meantime the nurses were all chatting and saying how cute Felicity was.  Then the most charmless one came and got Felicity.  I handed her over to the Nurse Wretched and left with Felicity crying and crying.  I of course was worried that it would be the last time I ever saw her, so that was cheery.

I waited for not that long and they came and got me so I could talk to the doctor.  He said it went fine, but that he found out that she had a bifid uvula.  He explained to me what it was and said that one of the things that it can mean is that if someone has a bifid uvula, they can also have a lot of middle ear infections.  Also, he said, it is mostly concurrent with a submucous cleft palate, but he didn't see that in Felicity.  He said that the bifid uvula can make for problems drinking and NURSING.  I mentioned that she had what they called a bubble palate when she was newborn and that's why I thought she had trouble nursing and he seemed to think that was possible, although he didn't seem to care, probably because HE doesn't stay up nights thinking he failed his fourth child, ha!

Anyway, I went back to see her and she was MAD, but I held her and gave her a tiny bottle of apple juice and she drifted off a little bit and relaxed, which was a relief.  I could see her heart rate going down on the monitor, which was handy.  We had to stay for an hour, during which time she mostly slept and I mostly bit my tongue to get over the pain in my arm from holding her in this crappy chair.  They gave me a survey for this surgery center and you can BET I'm going to recommend that they give people a more comfortable place to sit, sheesh!

We were allowed to leave after one hour, the nurse walked us out and of course she threw up twice on the way home.  In the back of my mind, I was thinking, boy that's a lot of apple juice for her to have after having general anesthesia, and of course it all came back up.  She threw up again when we got home but we weren't worried, she seemed fine, really.  Mike put her down for a nap while I took Maria and Veronica out for lunch and she slept for quite a while and when she woke up, poof, new baby!

I'm eager to see how she does, I'm happy it's over, and I'm grateful that Mike could stay home and take care of the other ones so I could concentrate on sweet Felicity.

Father's Day Update

Felicity is doing fine, she's been on the antibiotic for a week and a day and although she still has a cough and a runny nose, she hasn't had a fever since last Sunday, and she is in much better spirits, for the most part.  I can't believe she's having those damned adenoids out on Thursday, already.  Lord, lord, I hope and pray it goes well.  I'm nervous but I'm excited that this could make her better.  Mike is taking off of work on Thursday so I can go and not have to worry about the girls.  So far, we have the first appointment of the morning, and I hope it stays that way because of course she's not supposed to have anything to eat or drink after midnight Wednesday night.

It's Father's Day and I'm very grateful that Mike is such a good dad.  I had a great father, and my parents had great fathers, but I swear no one could be as good as Mike is.  He has a lot of challenges, and I fear *I'm* one of them and he is patient with all his charges, which I really appreciate.  Felicity, of all the kids, is so attached to him, she loves him so much, all day she walks around the house saying "Daddy?".  I always say, "Daddy's at work, he'll be home soon", which always satisfies her for the next hour or so.  The other day, I took the girls downtown to the strawberry festival and then we went to lunch and then to the mall.  Mike texted me while we were inside and he met me right outside the mall and I thought those girls would DIE of shock and happiness.  Felicity especially, she was like, shocked and happier than she ever is to see old me.  So anyway, happy father's day to Felicity's Father, and Anthony's and Maria's and Veronica's too.  We're lucky to have you.

Our Weekend

Here's the letter I wrote to the office where Felicity's ENT is, and to the drugstore where we tried to get her prescription filled:

To Whom it May Concern,

I had a terrible experience this weekend with both Northside ENT and the pharmacy at Walgreens and
I'd like to share it with you and find out what really happened.

On Friday morning, I took my daughter Felicity, age 20 months, to see Dr. Beach.  Last month, Felicity
took a 20 day course of Cefidir and we were going to see Dr. Beach to decide how it worked and if she
should have her adenoids out or not.  As of Friday morning, Felicity had a persistent cough and a lot of
mucus and was a little grumpy.  We met with Dr. Beach and he and I talked and we decided that yes,
she should have her adenoids out, so I made an appointment for June 20.

That night when I got home from work, around 12:30 a.m., Felicity woke up and would not stop
coughing.  She had a high fever that we could not get to come down.  We gave her Tylenol and a bath,
tried compresses and anything we could think of to help her cough and fever.  Finally around 5:00, she
fell asleep.  My husband called Northside ENT at 7:30 and left a message for the doctor on call with
the service.  The doctor called back within about 30 minutes and talked to my husband, and then said
he was going to prescribe the same medicine for Felicity that she had just taken.  He said that it was
important she was healthy for her surgery, although at that point we were just concerned with getting
her medicated and trying to get her fever down.

About 30 minutes after he talked to the doctor, my husband took two of our kids with him to the
Walgreens to pick up the prescription.  He texted me from the drugstore and said that there was a
problem, but I was dealing with a sick and screaming Felicity so I wasn't able to answer him.  He came
home after about 40 minutes and said that the doctor had sent the wrong prescription, so they couldn't
fill it.  The pharmacy technician said that the doctor sent a dosage of 3.5 teaspoons per dose and they
thought that that was too much, so they had called the doctor.  We knew from one month ago that what
Dr. Beach had prescribed was 3.5 ML, and of course we assumed the prescription would be the same,
but we also understood that if that's what was sent in, they'd have to get it right.
The pharmacy technician at Walgreens told my husband that they called the doctor at Northside ENT
at 8:15 so at 9:15 we called Northside ENT and the service told me that she was trying to get a hold of
him but the doctor hadn't called back.  I told the service that we were getting sort of desperate and she
said that she would keep trying to get a hold of the doctor.

I then called Walgreens, because I wanted to be sure that I was clear that there was no way the
prescription could be filled based on the dose that my daughter had been given one month earlier.
I called and told the pharmacy technician that I'd like to speak to the pharmacist to find out.  She
connected me to someone at the Pharmacy Care Center and as soon as he knew why I was calling
he transferred me to someone from the store, since I specifically asked to speak to the pharmacist who was working.

Someone answered the phone and said something unintelligible, so I asked “is this the pharmacist
working at the Walgreens at 62nd and Keystone and he said, and I quote, "yup".  I didn't think that was
the most professional way to answer the question, but I pressed on and asked if we were clear, that the
doctor had called in the wrong dose and that until he called in the right one, I couldn't get the medicine
for my daughter.  He said yes, that the doctor had electronically sent the wrong information and until he
had the right information, he couldn't fill it.   I asked my husband to call the service again, as this was
THREE HOURS since the original prescription, and he did, while I was on the phone with Walgreens.
The service told my husband that she would have the doctor call my husband back directly.

At this point it was 11:10 and we decided that we would just take Felicity to the urgent care and try and
get her a prescription that way.  The doctor called my husband at 11:15 and said that he HAD sent in
the right dosage and he'd call again.  As you can imagine, we were very frustrated by this point.  We
had been up for almost 12 hours with our sick baby, and everyone was telling us something different.
I felt like I was dealing with my four kids, where no one will take responsibility for something that's
broken.The difference is that THEY are CHILDREN.

I called Walgreens to say check that the prescription would be ready when my husband picked it up
and I talked to the pharmacist.  I said that I was going to get to the bottom of what happened and
that I did not appreciate getting what I felt was the runaround and he said, and I quote, “I'm soooo
sorry that I care about your child's safety and her getting the right dosage”.  I asked him if he learned
smarmy sarcasm at pharmacy school, as well as learning to answer questions in the affirmative with a
“yup”.  I told him that I needed to get off the phone and I felt sure he did too, and that he should fill the
prescription and that we would not use Walgreens pharmacy ever again.  When my husband picked up
the prescription, the pharmacist gave it to him and told him “tell your wife I'm sorry”, but my husband
told him that he didn't want to talk to him, he just wanted the prescription, for which we had waited
three and a half hours.

I don't know who is telling the truth here.  I certainly hope that Northside ENT, with whom I have
entrusted my daughter for one set of tubes and am planning on entrusting with her health as she has
her adenoids removed, isn't lying to me.  Then again, I hope that Walgreens, where I go for all my
prescriptions, isn't lying either.  My husband and I are extremely disgusted with the level of care that
we received this weekend and we would like someone to explain, honestly, what happened here.  There was a ball dropped, and we would like to know where.

So far I haven't heard from anyone.  Can it really be that no one will call me back and tell me what happened?  Should I still have Felicity's adenoids out by these jerkstores?  I swear, this is the worst part of being a parent, trying to deal with all the nimrods that have such an effect on your life.  I think I care more about people that come into the restaurant where I work and want a freaking BURGER than these people care about my kids.  It's exhausting.