Just a little rant...

about doctors and nurses and their files. First, most of you know that Ryan has some feeding issues. Okay, major if you ask me but it could be so much worse. All the boy will eat are baby 2nd foods bananas with applesauce and baby cereal mixed with it. I can get him to eat the bananas alone but the applesauce is a hard thing to get ingested without the bananas. He has been licking the salt from chips, crackers and french fries but if he gets any particle of this in his mouth he gags until he vomits. This is the major reason he's in the school system's PreK ESE program. He finally had his occupational therapy evaluation on Monday and then the therapist came on Tuesday to start her sessions. This has to be the fastest I've ever seen them schedule either boy for therapy. Usually the eval is done and then a week or two go by before a session is scheduled. Obviously, she found major problems and had to get right to work.

The original doctor knows this and it SHOULD be in Ryan's file at their office here but I don't think anyone bothers to read this. Ryan has been in school for four weeks now and he loves it but he's having some trouble adjusting to the eating/drinking schedule. I think he's having so much fun that he doesn't want to stop to eat or drink. Oh, another part of his issue is that he refuses or can't drink out of anything but a bottle and will only drink his formula with a little bit of rice milk added to it. We talked to the doctor about this over a year ago and all decided that he needed to go to the infant formula so that he still gets all his vitamins and minerals. Thanks to his occupational therapist we were able to get him started on some rice milk which we add to the formula.

This last week and weekend he's not been eating or drinking like he should even at home. I knew something was wrong but couldn't figure out if he's not feeling well or just not in a growth spurt right now. As with all kids, when they are in the "growth spurt" they eat like little piggies non-stop. Same for Ryan so I usually don't worry about him. Monday, we finally figured it out. The poor little baby was constipated. I had a call into the nurse at his Pediatrician's office but in the meantime I figured out what the problem was and "helped" him with it. No more graphic details forthcoming but use your imagination.

When the nurse finally called me back two hours later, I let her know that I figured out the problem but wanted to know some options to keep this from happening again. I explained the school situation and the eating but I swear she was either not listening or didn't understand. (Either of these are quite scary in my book!) She suggested prune juice. Okay but he's not really into drinking anything so what are my options with that. Put it with other liquid, okay I can attempt that. Each time she suggested something new I had to tell her again about his limited diet. At one point, she got very irritated with the fact that he's still on formula and procedeed to explain to me how he should have been off that at one year old. No really?!?! What parent in their right mind would continue paying these disgusting prices for a can of formula if they didn't have to?!?!?! Do you know how much a can of this crap costs????? If you're lucky and can find it on sale you can pay $18.99 but if no sale then you pay ove $21.00 for 24 ounces. Come on lady, really, do you think with this being my fourth child that I'd be that friggin' dumb?!?!?!?!

I REALLY don't think it's that hard to actually pull the file and scan it before making that phone call or during the phone call even. I'm not asking you to read the stupid thing from cover to cover but somewhere on that actual FOLDER is the shortened version of the issues each child has if it's going to be an ongoing problem. Please, just take a minute or two to scan it so you can be informed before you make yourself look extremely stupid and before you really piss the parent off. Okay, I'm getting off my soapbox now. Thanks for letting me vent.