Because parenting and drugs don’t always mix

Note: This column appears in the 5/13 issue of The Glendale Star and the 5/14 issue of the Peoria Times

Parenting is a crash course in many things. Changing diapers, feedings, understanding the bizarre brilliance of “Yo Gabba Gabba,” just to name a few. For me personally, parenting has become an important lesson in a field that wasn’t mastered even during college: drugs and pharmaceuticals.

I personally try to go to the doctor about, well…never, so my knowledge of ailments and their respective remedies is lacking indeed. Because children are, generally, a disease-ridden species, being a foster parent and now (hopefully) a parent of my very own child has afforded me the opportunity to learn many things about the wonderful world of sickness. But this newfound knowledge really just involves the basic, technical methods necessary for treatment. For example, I can draw a plastic syringe like a cowboy –- sometimes I wear them on my belt just to show off -– and I can also give a child a breathing treatment with one hand and surf the MLB channels with the other.

But when it comes to the medicine itself, or what is actually wrong with the child in question, I am oftentimes willfully ignorant. Sometimes I will ask my wife why our little one is still taking a certain medicine and she will ask me, in a frustrated manner, what was going through my head when the pediatrician was explaining everything and I was nodding intently. The answer is probably baseball, but I don’t say that.

This ignorance has manifested itself several times recently. Our little one has been battling acid reflux, and I was put in charge of refilling her prescription of Zantac. Now, last year I could not tell you the difference between Zantac and Levitra, but amazingly I somehow knew that she wasn’t taking Zantac per say, but its generic or some alternative form. My mistake however was not checking the bottle before the pharmacist got on the phone, and assuming that I needed to be exact and technical when refilling the prescription said: “Yeah, I need to fill her prescription of (just now looking at the bottle, squinting)…ran-a-tititidine. I mean, rana…titididdidi…Zantac.” My wife looked on in bewilderment and then broke out in laughter when I hung up. Also, the name of the drug is ranitidine, but in our house, to my dismay, it now goes by the name I gave it.

Just last week our little one –- surprise! –- became sick with a bad cough and my wife took her to the pediatrician. She called me on her way back and told me the doctor said she had croup. Over the phone I heard this as “trupe” and, not having any clue what that was or what she was talking about, did that thing that I like to do where I pretend I know what she’s talking about. (It should also be mentioned that I had never heard of croup either. It sounds like something that 17th century American colonists cured with boiling water and pig urine.)

When it came time for me to pick up her prescription I took it upon myself to ask the pharmacist this question: “So, is trupe contagious?” She looked at me strange, so I elaborated by spelling it out. “Ya know, t-r-u-p-e, trupe?” Amazingly, for a pharmacist, she did not know.

Because she had forgotten to ask the pediatrician this question, I thought my wife would be impressed that I had asked the pharmacist, even though she didn’t know the answer. “Wait, what did you call it?” she said.

I am no longer in charge of filling prescriptions. I can still work the syringe though. I can draw 2 mls of trupe juice, as its now called, in no time flat.


Troop knows what I'm talking about

One doctor’s specialty: indifference

Note: This column appears in the 8/6 issue of The Glendale Star and the 8/7 issue of the Peoria Times

Two weeks ago our foster daughter woke up crying in the middle of the night yelling “I sick!” We took her temperature and it read 103.5.

It wasn’t that surprising to us, as she had felt a little warm when we put her to bed that evening. Also, things had been progressing too healthily over the past few days for something like this not to happen. My wife and I compromised: she would stay home with her that day, but I was going to take her to the pediatrician’s office before work. This was obviously going to be a fantastic day.

Because of the circumstances we could not go to our regular pediatrician, but we had been to this office before when our foster daughter had pink eye. I remember because it was like “Children of the Corn” in the waiting room, with kids walking around like zombies. Some were crying and others sat silent with breathing masks on. My only retreat from the horror was wiping away the constant stream of gook oozing from our foster daughter’s eyes, which was gross, but better than surveying the surrounding scene. And even though we waited for what seemed like three years to get called in, the doctor was nice, professional, and our little one was better a few days later.

This time was a little different.

Besides burning up, she had been saying that her “mouth hurt,” which we translated to mean that her throat was sore. When I told the nurse this, she placed her down to swab her throat. Now, I am 31 years old. Getting my throat swabbed is probably the most uncomfortable thing in the world this side of a rectal exam, which I may or may not have experienced before. This girl is 3-years old. It was not pleasant.

She was still crying when the doctor stormed in a few seconds later. The first thing he said to me, in a huff, was, “I was just about to go home.” Apparently, I was supposed to feel guilty about my foster daughter waking up with a 103.5 temperature as his shift was about to end. My bad, doc.

Without any coddling or small talk whatsoever to make a sick and scared three-year-old feel more comfortable, he started jabbing her with things and talking to her like she was my age. "What hurts?" he asked bluntly, and incredulously, as if this was all one big scam. Our little one, still crying and now confused, said her eye and head hurt. Then the doctor condescendingly quipped, “Yeah, sometimes the story changes on the ride over here, huh?” He then told me to give her children’s Motrin and rushed out of the room.

I was made to feel like an overbearing parent that overreacted and inconvenienced someone who is paid handsomely to treat children. Our little one was left dazed by the whole experience. When I went to complain at the front desk, no one was there.

Luckily for me, I just so happen to write for the local paper, where I can embark on personal crusades under the guise of public interest. So let this serve as my official complaint.

If you’re reading this doc, you know who you are. Maybe I caught you on a bad day. Maybe you are just bad at your job. Maybe you watch too much “House.” Whatever the case, see you again the next time our kid gets sick? I’d rather have a rectal exam.


Even Dr. Nick would have been better...