I come up with the most interesting thoughts while in the shower. This is something that has been bugging me for a long time and I have been a little too nice about these in older posts so I thought I would correct and share. Our pediatrician for lack of better word s#*ks! My sister had her for awhile and mostly had a positive outcome. She only switched pediatricians because the wait was becoming ridiculous with her two children. I on the other had have had a completely different experience with her. I have come to this epiphany after seeing the progress my son is making with zero help from her. And in fact I believe she delayed my son’s diagnosis and didn’t address our medical concerns with him and brushed them off as nothing. It’s too bad because I really wanted to like her and I did in the beginning because I was too overwhelmed to question her.
When we first interviewed the donkey I had no idea what to ask so I just listened and thought she was nice so I said ok lets go with her. We already had had one pediatrician that I didn’t like because I didn’t get a warm fuzzy feeling from her and I thought it was a stuffy practice. We switched pediatricians within a month. I fault myself for not asking enough questions at that interview. When I first noticed problems with breast feeding her advice was to just keep doing what I was doing because it was working and my son was growing like a weed. At every visit she was always praising what we were doing because my son was happy and continued to be in the 90 percentile for both height and weight. I would half heartedly throw out some questions or concerns and her solution for everything was that he needed to eat more. So I keep feeding him. He couldn’t sleep through the night. She said he isn’t eating enough give him more solids. This was at three months. I wasn’t able to feed him more than three ounces of milk at a time without him throwing up. Her answer, he wasn’t eating enough solids and it was fine to give him only three ounces of milk at a time. He had colic that lasted well into four months old. Again he wasn’t eating enough and I need to feed him more. He would wake up crying all night long as he got older. Still she said he wasn’t eating enough and to give him a large snack before bed time so he wouldn’t be so hungry. At this point we were calling him Buddha. It makes me sad to think I called him that now.
When his speech didn’t come the next explanation the donkey gave us was that boys talk late and that we just need to be patient. Although she did call early intervention for us, I’m thinking she was rolling her eyes at us at this point. Early intervention told us to take the autism test (sorry I still don’t know what the heck it’s called) at the doctor’s office. I called make the appointment that he reluctantly scheduled and took the test. He passed. And then we took it again about six months later. Again we had to have a little back and forth to even schedule the test. The donkey had her husband (he is a pediatrician with his own practice) give us the test in the hallway of the office building. Yep you guessed my son passed again and the donkey’s husband, let’s call him donkey #2, told us he was fine in a sarcastic way. Making us feel like idiots for even taking the test again. I remember being embarrassed that we went in. In the meantime she was hopping him up on antibiotics for ear infections for eight months.
Ok so let’s fast forward a little bit here. In a roundabout way I pushed for the diagnosis. It was only after EI diagnosed him when I called asking her to make a recommendation with a neurologist she thought it was a good idea. I was as if it was her idea that we see the neurologist. Every conversation from then on out with her is like talking to two different people. I don’t think she knows who I am on the phone and can connect it with the office visits. I have had to fight her for every doctor recommendation, letters to insurance, letters for his IEP, letters for his therapies, lab tests, getting the results of lab tests, questioning evaluations and test results. But one of the most disturbing and frustrating phone calls I had with her was on the way home from OT with my son. I was trying to get a letter for something and briefly mentioned we would be bringing him to a DAN doctor. She told me “take out a loan”. The rest of the conversation she made me feel as if I wasn’t doing enough for my son. She had no idea what my financial situation was but according to her ABA was the only solution. On a side note I am not talking out against ABA and in fact it has been wonderful for my son, more on that later. I was taken aback by her tone toward me. I didn’t say much after that and just wanted to get off the phone with her. Just two weeks ago she had me draft a letter for her to sign. She then rewrote the letter to take out the necessary wording we needed for insurance and put in the mail to us.
Unfortunately I haven’t found a new pediatrician yet. The pediatricians that are willing to support my son and our family’s choices are few and far between. I at least know what I am dealing with now. She doesn’t hide it and at the last visit a recent article about how there is no link between autism and vaccines was posted on her bulletin board. She told me how wonderful we were doing with our son and how he seemed so happy. She was 100 percent sincere about it. I wanted to laugh in her face. I thought to myself I now want no part of your advice or praise. A little support, understanding, help, guidance, and compassion when we needed it most would have been nice you donkey!
Recent Comments