So I have a day off.  I was able to sleep in until my youngest daughter, who is now 4 years old woke up.  She slept in til 7:30 am…WooHoo!!  My 6 yo joined us downstairs a half hour later.  Summer camp is over and they have nothing structured planned for August.  My oldest is looking forward to a library event at 1 pm where she could win a Kindle reader because she completed 10 hours of reading thru the library’s reading program in July.  So what to do from now til 1……hmmm???

Brush teeth, get dressed, brush hair, eat breakfast, make beds (which is the only chore my 6 yo has right now)  It is now 10am. That killed some time.   Wait I didn’t even eat or have my coffee yet :(So lets try to solve that problem, put my Kcup in to be brewed and set the girls up to do their summer workbooks.  After only 10 minutes of negototiating they agree with going to park after completing 4 pages each in respective books.  I feel a huge sense of accomplishment for getting this done so early in the day.

Lily (the 4 yo) wants to ride her new birthday scooter that she got last week. and we’re off to the park. After we get cleaned up, eat lunch, do the library thing (which of course we don’t win the Kindle ), we go get ice cream at the local ice cream shoppe. Then I hear my phone beep in my purse on the drive home.  I check it at home and realize a friend just facebook IM’d me with a “quick question”.

An old college friend contacted me.  She suffers from inflammatory bowel disease.  This is a disease that I treat in my pediatric patients also, although we do not have as many medication options as the adults have.  She was started on a new medication and is having a twitching in her face and numbness after 2 weeks of this new med.  She called her doctor and can’t reach him. He is on vacation and although he has 4 partners that are IN THE OFFICE, the front desk won’t let her speak to any of them. So she is asking me for my advice.  I am used to this type of question.  Day off or not I will always get phone calls at all hours of the day or night.  The worst was when our friends had new babies.

I answered her questions and began to become more and more furious as speaking to her with the way this adverse reaction was handled.  This is the difference between adult and pediatric medicine. The bedside manner and level of concern.  In pediatrics we deal with our patients and the caregivers, which is similar to geriatrics.  I gave my friend the exact script of what to say to the front desk that would get her through to the doctor.  Most of the time its the annoying patients that get what they need from the medical system. The sweet people will get nowhere and I needed her to be seen by her doctor or by the on call physician.   She finally got an appointment for tomorrow and spoke to one of her doctors.

During this dialogue I received a phone call from the chief of the pediatric division at the hospital with a question regarding the Peds GI clinic statistics, I had to be referee between my girls at least 3 times, let my dogs out to pee in the yard 4 times and then gave the girls a snack.

And then guess what I found……my coffee still in the keurig!

#KidsTummyTroubles