Natalie and Kirstin's Big Adventure

Wednesday 19 September 2007....
Kirstin is always the one who ends up in hospital! She has been struggling a little bit with the move, which we were all expecting but the funny thing is that she is “presenting” (too much Grey’s Anatomy ;-) ) with a sore tummy. I am fairly sure that this is due to all that is going on but I decided to amuse her and take her to the doctor anyway.
Finding a doctor is also not that easy so I went on to a medical website and searched in our area. The first doctors’ room I called are “not taking on any new patients” so I called the medical rooms at the Dundrum mall and they could see Kirstin so I decided that we would try them. Of course I got a horrible doctor, Dr Shoab who is difficult to understand, his English is not too hot, and he diagnosed appendicitis.
Now Kirstin has had the pain for 6 days so I felt awful and he sent us off to Crumlin Children's hospital….”stat” . Problem….I do not know how to get there so home first to look in a map book and plan my route. I could not find the hospital in the map book so turned to the Internet and looked up the hospital. No address on the website, by now enormously frustrated! I found a phone number so I gave them a call and a very helpful doctor answered and one of her colleagues lives near us so she gave me directions. Turns out that it is basically one road bar a couple of roundabouts and one turn right, but you can’t go left so no chance of going wrong!!! It is about 20 minutes away so I left Jess at home to wait for Malcolm, of course this was the day he had decided to try out the bus for the first time, which had turned out to be a blessing. By now I am having enormous doubts about the diagnosis, it does not really make sense….6 days, surely she would be writhing in pain, but I did ask Kirstin to pack sleep over things and her toothbrush etc just in case. Now we had to go to accident and emergency, with a letter from Dr Shoab in hand and we were sent to the waiting room and then called to triage where a nurse took Kirstin’s temperature, blood pressure and a urine sample. Back to the waiting room for about 90 minutes (thank goodness I had packed magazines and books) and then finally we got called in to the doctor. In a twist of fortune it happened to be the same doctor that had given me directions which I was pleased about because she was really friendly and warm. The urine sample was clear and after examining Kirstin she found that nothing was wrong! Kirstin did not like the diagnosis and insisted that she was in a fair amount of pain so the doctor examined her again and told Kirstin that if she wanted to stay at the hospital overnight they would keep an eye on her and check her in the morning. To my astonishment Kirstin was rather happy with the turn of events even though she knew I could not stay. I asked the doctor if she felt that it was necessary and she said no not at all, I could keep an eye on her at home. I mentioned to the doctor that half of Kirstin’s problem might be the fact that she does not want to go to school so she said that Kirstin could stay at home and I could monitor her. This was also a favourable outcome as far as Kirstin was concerned and she happily hopped off the examining table to go home. I was relieved, but more pissed off for all the running around because of one stupid doctors observations. I also smelled a rat…there was no way Kirstin was staying at home, I had been swindled, not that I think her cramps were not real, I just think that they may have been capitalised on!
Once in the car I broke the news to Kirstin, school was a go for tomorrow and she could take a couple of painkillers if necessary, but she is behind in maths and cannot afford to take more time off as she had already spent a day at home. I told her that I thought part of the problem was anxiety and the rest probably constipation, she seemed to agree with me actually and was not too upset with my decision. Next day I bought duphalac syrup and I have not had a tummy complaint since!