Monday, August 4, 2008

3 kids... 8 shots... ouch.

It started out innocently enough. I got Hudson's "Welcome to Preschool" letter. It included a reminder that I needed to bring in his immunization records. So being the lazy efficient mother that I am I thought, "I'll call right now so they can send me a copy in plenty of time before school and I won't have to go pick it up."

The phone conversation went like this:

Nice nurse: "Sure, we can send you that, let me just check. Uhhh... Mrs. Pate, Hudson is behind on four of his immunizations and he will have to have those before entering school."

Me: "Oh really?"

Nice nurse: "Yes he needs the blah blah blah bazillions of letters immunizations."

Me: "Okay."

Nice nurse: "This is starting to jog my memory, as long as we are having you bring him in lets check on Camden."

Me: "Okay" (in my head, "stink, I know needs some shots...we delayed one year shots because there is a chance that all the people who think the MMR immunization causes autism could be partially right. And now you can't split it up like I did with the older 2. So... I just didn't have it done. Some people think that doing it when they are older is better."

Nice nurse: "Oh, it looks like Camden needs 4 shots now also, and he also missed his 18 month well-baby check."

(now not so nice nurse who is probably calling child services on her other line): "Why don't we check on Ainsley just in case."

Me: "Oh, I know she is okay, she has been in school for two years now and I know I've had to bring in immunization records for her."

Nurse: "Yes, well the state now is requiring that children have the varesella (chicken pox) booster shots to be enrolled in school. So she will have to have that. There is also the Hepatitis A vaccine that she should have."

Me: "Alright, can I just bring them all in together?"

Nurse: "You want to bring them all in for all of them at the same time? That is 10 shots total we will have to do."

I'm definitely a kill two birds with one stone sort of person, so yes. I wanted to bring them all in and just get it over with. Turns out because of a cancellation that had an appointment open for Monday at 1:45. So today I took two very unhappy children and one who was blissfully unaware of the impending trauma in the the doctor.

Multi-tasking is a beautiful thing unless it is having three children all in a doctors office together. Mercifully Andrew got done with tennis practice and made it in time to take the two older kids out while Camden had his appointment and shots, then I was able to give Camden to Andrew while I took the other two in for their shots. Turns out one of Camden's was the Hep A that was also one for Ainsley and it is optional, so we optioned no. Camden had 3, Hudson had 4, and Ainsley skated through with only 1. So it brought the total pokes in our family today down to 8.

After Ainsley was done the nurse told her "this is the last shot you have to have until you are 10!" Ainsley didn't say anything, and just sort of glared at her. I found out why as we were driving away. She said, "That lady told me I didn't have to have any more shots until I was 10 the last time I had shots. She lied." I explained that the state had changed the rules so there was another shot and that she didn't know at the time she said it they would change the rules. Ainsley said, "Well if the state changes the rules again, could we please move somewhere that is not in the United States?"

I'm going to bed early tonight. Not only did I spend two hours total in the doctors office today wrestling kids, most of the time my kids have shots they wake up with a fever in the night. Heaven only knows how many times I'll be up tonight.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know who in the Pate family I feel the most sorry for right now!!!! Get some sleep. You are a brave mommy!
Heather

Anonymous said...

At least you made it through! It sounds as if your kids probably didn't scream their heads off and make a scene. You did great and so did they! How did the night go?

Ally said...

This was hysterical, Tiffany. I can so relate. Who can keep track of all of this? Especially with the third child... he's lucky he was even born in a hospital or received any doctor care. :)

Also, Eleanor had the same "lie" told to her by a well-meaning nurse and it made it REALLY difficult to take her in for the shot when the rules changed.

Pate Family said...

Yeah- I don't know if it is good or bad that Camden has easily been to the doctor only 10% of the time Ainsley had been by his age. Oh well... the only way he will ever know is because he doesn't have all the perfectly doccumented "growth charts" that Ainsley has littering her baby book.

And we did okay with the boys through the night, Ainsley was the one with traumas. Didn't sleep until 10 because her leg hurt "so bad" and she woke up at 4:45, again because her leg hurt "so bad." That is my risk and pain avoiding little first born.

Alicia said...

I can certainly relate to the feeling of having nurses think you are an unfit mother. We've been consistently 1 month behind on Eliana's well-baby appointments. So far she's been healthy so I haven't worried about it.

We had the opposite issue with Ethan & Josie. I finally got around to making an appointment for them to have their kindergarten physicals (i.e. immunizations), only to find out that they both had them last year and are all caught up! I was pleasantly surprised, but now my excuse for not submitting the school enrollment forms in time is no longer valid. That's the next thing on my list - they must go to school or none of us will survive another month.

Amy said...

Wow - that must be tough. My boys could care less about shots but my oldest - she is a whole other story. We litterally have to hold her down so they can give them to her.

Sometimes I think it's more tramatic for me then it is for her.