Simply put, people are idiots.
We went to our mandatory eye follow-up exam for Crew this morning to evaluate the progress of his ROP. While in the waiting room, waiting for his dilation drops to take full effect, a mom and her baby sat down near us. Not super near, but about 8 feet away. She had an 8 month old baby with her that was sucking on a binky.
We struck up a conversation about children, binkies, etc and eventually got to a part of the conversation that went a little something like this:
Megan: We're big binky people, but my kids usually give it up spontaneously around 7 months or so.
Idiot: My son might give it up soon. He hasn't even been taking it very much lately. He hasn't been able to breathe because he's been so sick.
Megan: Oh... he's been sick?
Idiot: Yes, he has RSV.
Megan: HE HAS RSV???
Idiot: Yeah. He was officially diagnosed over the weekend. We wouldn't have brought him out today except that the eye doctor had an opening and I didn't want to pass it up.
Megan: So... is he on the tail end of it?
Idiot: Mmmm... no. Actually, he's right in the thick of it. He's still on breathing treatments when it gets really bad.
Megan: Silence.
Idiot: Oh, look. He's slobbering all over that (wooden community) toy. Oh well, I don't mind today. It's not like he's going to get any sicker from whatever germs are on that toy, ha ha ha!
Megan: Further silence.
They called me back about 20 seconds later, before I could open my mouth and shout at the top of my lungs "do you realize that my baby will very possibly die if he gets RSV??" Kinda wish I could have mentally regrouped fast enough to have done it.
I'm just glad she was idiot enough to tell me. I totally tattled on the RSV family and the eye doctor was super mad that they had come.
Now, this information put me in a hard spot for the exam. I knew that their tech had dilated the germy boy as well. I couldn't let her touch Crew now, so I held him down during the procedure. I've never seen the exam before (intentionally, since I heard it was horrendous to witness). I saw every bit of it this time. And I'm sure I will see it again tonight in my nightmares. And tomorrow night, and the next, and the next... I won't describe it for you, but suffice it to say that it was worse than I had even imagined.
Now that I'm done ranting, I can report the Good News: Crew's ROP is retreating!! He is almost almost to zone 3 (full vascularization) and he is now back at stage 1 ROP. Hopefully only one more medieval tortuous exam in two weeks and we'll be fully in the clear, with ROP a distant (and haunting) memory.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
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4 comments:
Oh. my. goodness. That is insane! Don't people get told about the ramifications of RSV and how serious it is?!?!? Geesh. We were cooped up all winter with croup 2 years ago, and that's not even half as serious! Wow, so sorry you met an idiot today. Yikes. You guys just be hermits for a year, kay?
How scary! OK... I think I'm going to have to line up only doctors who make housecalls (do they even do that anymore?) for when I get Connor home. So ridiculous! For her baby's sake, I can't believe she took him out of the house...
P.S. Congratulations on the ROP progress! That's great news. :) We're currently holding our breath that Connor will show some growth this week and can avoid having to have laser surgery on Monday for his ROP. So brave of you to be there through the eye exam - our nurses scared me away from that one!
ARE YOU SERIOUS????????????? I totally would have tattled too, and I wouldn't have been polite about tearing a strip off her back in the waiting room, too!!!!!!!!!!!! I CANNOT believe that happened to you!
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