My experience at Children's Hospital ER

Let me preface this by saying that this is MY experience with MY child and if you had a wonderful experience, I'm happy for you.  But please realize this was, what I thought, my only way of getting my son seen by someone who would know something about his headaches.

Late last week, Sam's headaches were increasing in pain, his stomach was even MORE unsettled and I noticed that he wasn't eating a whole lot.  Maybe he had a virus or something and I just put it out of my mind for a bit.  Then I noticed he wasn't making trips to the bathroom a whole lot.  Then it dawned on me to ask Sam how much has he been drinking.

Me: Sam how much water/milk/juice have you had today?
Sam: Not much, maybe one or two of the red cups (Red cups are those sippy cups without the top; they hold roughly 7 ounces and that's it. So if he drank maybe 2 of these that equals to 14 ounces of liquid!)

Me: How often are you going to the bathroom?
Sam: When I get up....
Me: and.........
Sam: that's it.

THAT'S IT??? Are you kidding me??  So here I am, frantically emailing my buddy Nikki (who seems to know all things medical!!! Love her!) who told me to basically go and get him checked out. Off we went.

We get there, check Sam in, I fill out paperwork (when don't I???) and we wait for Sam's name to be called. We are called back fairly quickly and they get Sam a hospital gown to put on.  The nurse comes in ONCE to tell us her name and leaves...umm... okay.... Then the 3rd year resident comes in and asks a boat load of questions to which I answer them. They did a pee check and some bloodwork. Sam is such a trooper!!! While we were waiting for results, we played Angry Birds on my NookColor.  Sam had a great time with that.

The "real" doctor comes in and tells that:
A. He's completely hydrated -  (REALLY??? on only roughly 20 ounces of fluid A DAY?? - I wasn't born yesterday here people I know you need MORE than that, COME ON NOW!!)

B. His labs are complete normal - (I knew this was going to happen because all of his labs ALWAYS come up normal!!)

C. Sometimes there is NO reason WHY people get headaches, people just live with them - (OK, while I totally understand that some people get migraines and nausea that goes with it, those usually break and they get relief. Sam has had this god-damned headache for 18 months now people, he shouldn't HAVE to JUST live with it. So, please explain to me "doctor who knows nothing about my kid" why are you passing the buck here to YET another doctor, who, BTW, will run these insane tests AGAIN and tell me that there is nothing wrong with him??)

D. The doctor tells me that I'm not COMPLIANT with his medications - Again, "doctor who doesn't live in my house" I have been compliant with his medications, Sam gives me a running tally of how he's feeling and has asked BOTH times to take him off the medications (with the GP knowing about it) - So telling me that I'm not compliant is plain and utter BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keep in mind, while she is "scolding" me, she keeps telling me that she has some procedure that she needs to go and do.  Then WHY come in when you did and "scold" me like you did??  I totally don't get that. She was rude, treated me like I knew absolutely nothing about how the medical field works and that they knew more than I did about MY child's health.


So we were released with the names of YET 2 additional neurologist that I should "seriously look into because they are experts in their field" - umm.... okay..we will see how much MORE my insurance will ACTUALLY pay before doing this.  Mean while they gave ME NO answers on how to treat Sam, how to get him to drink more water or to eat something (anything at this point..he's losing weight here people!) But told me to come back to the ER "if he doesn't pee for MORE than 24 hours" - that doesn't make sense either...but I'm JUST a MOM and I know NOTHING, remember??


I'm wondering if Sam would have gotten a better outcome if the husband came with me??   Just wondering.......