“It’s okay to eat fish because they don’t have any feelings.” ~Kurt Cobain
We see most of our doctors in a major children’s hospital in a major city. Usually the appointments are in the doctor’s clinic, a very busy time. I have no problem with that.
Before seeing the doctor, our name is called and we go into some room, usually with a young non-doctor type for my daughter to be weighed (in only a diaper), measured, what have you. The room usually has just one door, but in some clinics it has two and doctors and others walk through it.
I have always closed the doors, and almost always had a bad reaction. One woman told me that people needed to walk through! I honestly said
Fine, if you are standing here in your underwear as you want my daughter to, then we leave the door open.
What is with these people? Or is it me? A bit of decency. Yes, even when she was five or six. Am I wrong? And now, when she is a teenager? It is absurd that they have no empathy.
Now it is easier. They ask me to put her on the scale. I simply say
No, I don’t pick her up anymore.
It is true, we use lifts in the house … she is almost 90 pounds. And they don’t have a lift, why I can’t imagine. There is some push back where I am told how the doctor needs to know her weight, etc. I usually shrug and say “Then have the doctor pick her up and put her on the scale.” I should not be rude, but I am so tired of this.
Okay, do you know how much she weighs?
Yes, 88 pounds last week.
How do you know?
I use a fish scale.
And I smile at her puzzled look.
My friend…you are NOT wrong. They just don’t think it matters. Retarded kids don’t have feelings you know, or dignity. And a hospital, as you know I have said, is the WORST place to go with a severely disabled kid. They have NO accommodations whatsoever…even in Peds. neuro. Dumb and dumber.
You ROCK! 🙂 I love your responses! I remember my daughter was in the ER at 7 years old seizing her head off. They had her buck naked on the hospital bed and pumping her up with dilantin, etc but she was in status and nothing was stopping it. I just remembered, they had the curtain open and she’s there spread freakin’ eagle in her birthday suit in a dramatic grand mal and these random people (non staff, laypeople) are walking by staring out her and looking sorrowfully at each other. I finally yelled at the nurse “Close the damn curtain! It’s not a free show!” ugh!
Absolutely every patient’s privacy should be respected. Part of the problem lies in your first sentence: “a major children’s hospital in a major city”. The larger the medical entity (fallaciously called a system) the less personal every aspect is. It is often impossible to even see the same physician over a period of time and have him/her get to know the patient. Impersonal.
Which reminds me to mention that when the entity controlling the big impersonal medical care is the government – more so. Just saying.
About the scales – your solution is both brilliant and used in rehab hospitals and schools. Also available at ‘major’ hospitals in ‘major’ cities are scales that accommodate a wheelchair. After weighing the person in the chair, if the patient is transferred onto an examining table, the wheelchair is then weighed empty.