Quote of the day

“When you love somebody, you will cry” – Ezekiel Isaiah Stephen (almost 5 years old)

doctor?

After two weeks, my son is still coughing his little lungs out. He finished the medication from the private doctor so I took him to the government clinic for a different opinion.

Since the government clinic is not “officially” opened on Saturday, they only had two registration counters, two pharmacy counter and two doctors are available. I can totally understand this. Even when cueing to register and when it was finally my turn, the doctor called the lady and she took about 10 minutes to entertain him, I understand. Even when she had no change for RM10.00, I understand. What I don’t and WILL NEVER understand is their numbering system.

The government clinic’s numbering system is a matter of luck and good timing. It doesn’t matter you arrive before the sun rises because they will assigned you to rooms alternately based on the available doctors. April is a totally crazy month and somehow I ended up with the doctor in room 17 and that’s when everything just went irritatingly weird.

The doctor in room 17 takes forever to treat his patients. It’s not like he’s with them long, no. It’s the time in between the patient that is slow. The other doctor in room 16 was quick. People were going in and out of the room, while the rest of us waited patiently. After more than an hour, I was getting really annoyed. Babies and children were crying. The senior couple in front of me fell asleep. Ekiel wanted to go home and watch his cartoons. When Ekiel asked me why it is taking forever, I told him to ask the doctor. He refused. Hee.

Finally we went in the room and what happened in the room, in my opinion, was crazy.

He asked me what is wrong with Ekiel so I explained to him about Ekiel’s coughing and what not while he uses the stethoscope and placed it on Ekiel’s chest.

He asked me if there’s any asthma history in the family. I told him about my asthma attacked days but it stopped when I turned 10 years old. Then the doctor asked me the stupidest question. “I think your son needs an inhaler. What do you think?” I stared at the doctor blankly. If he was someone I know well, I’d give him my infamous one eye brow raised, a loud “HEH?” and a smack on the head. How does one, with no medical knowledge answer that?

I nicely told him I am not the doctor and asked his opinion. He quickly tells me Ekiel needs to use the inhaler. He will need to take two types of medicine. One BLUE and the other orange. He continues tell me that the green medicine needs to be taken four times a day. WTH? Where did the green medicine come from? So I asked him if he meant the blue pill and he nodded and continued to say that the blue pill stops when Ekiel stops coughing. The orange one needs to be taken three times continuously. I blinked my eyes a couple of times and asked him if continuously means forever. The doctor said Ekiel cannot stop taking the medication. I blinked my eyes again. I asked him there is any side effect to this and he tell me there is. He also told me Ekiel would need to gargle and wash his face every time he takes the pills to prevent fungus infection.

WTH?

All the doctor did was put the stethoscope on his chest a couple of time and he is prescribing my son with permanent medication, which comes with side effects. Is that how you diagnose asthma? He doesn’t have symptoms like wheezing, shortness of breath and he is still like energiser bunny despite the cough.

I looked at the doctor and I all I saw was a guy who has no idea what he was doing. He didn’t look confident about his prescription and was babbling when I asked him question about the medicine. So I asked him if there is any alternative. He looked at me as if I have accused him of giving my son asthma. I told him I am not comfortable giving him a medication that he has to rely on for the rest of his life as he is only five years old.

What I really wanted to say was, “HELLO??? DO YOU REALLY THINK I WOULD LET YOU SCREW UP MY SON’S LIFE JUST BECAUSE YOU PUT YOUR BLOODY STETHOSCOPE ON HIS CHEST A COUPLE OF TIMES? I DON’T THINK SO!!!

He didn’t sound too happy when he tells me he could prescribe cough syrup and stronger antibiotics for Ekiel to which I immediately agree. He reluctantly cancelled the inhaler medication and wrote the cough syrup. He told me to make sure I bring Ekiel back if he doesn’t get any better.Like duh.

I don’t think I did anything wrong when I ask for another alternative. So what if I pissed him off, but hey, this involves my son. Imagine all the other children who are now dependent on that inhaler no thanks to him.

If we cannot trust doctors, then who else can we trust? *sighs*

I'm back

How are you my long neglected blog?

Crazy CRAZY week.

I don’t know if it’s the weather, hormones or something I ate, I was walking around with dark clouds above my head with occasional rain, thunder storms, tornadoes, hail and everything weather related.

The only good thing about this “episode” is that people leave me alone but because life is sometime a big joke, there are those who just won’t stop. BUGGING me. If only you could see the things I did to them, in my head of course, it’s not pretty.

Ekiel just got better from fever and eye infection. One a good day, he would just chew the panadol without much question but he can be difficult when he wants to. Like the other day, I had to persuade him to take his medicine for 30 minutes. He cried and he cried when suddenly he smiles and take his medicine without a fuss. WTH.

I managed to put a drop of the eye medicine in one eye. Shocked [from the cooling effect], he starts rolling them like in the cartoons. He said it hurts and now completely refuses to take them. He has so many distracting tricks up his sleeve.

Ekiel: Mommy, what’s wrong with your eye?

Me: Why?

Ekiel: There something in your eye

Me: *wipes* My mascara cair already waiting for you

Ekiel: Oh, I thought you want to die already

He is still coughing though. His cough is so bad sometimes, I freaked out. With that much of coughing, it’s amazing that he didn’t cough his lungs or any of his internal organs out.

Last Sunday, three brothers from the age of four to eight came over to my house while their parents (parents’ friend) went to do their thing.

Now, I know boys are tough and rough, but when these three boys [and their two older sisters] fight, I get scared. They threw their punches hard and most time at the fragile places. So when the eldest and youngest boy was fighting over a broken toy, they started hitting each other when the eldest kicked the youngest’s balls. The poor boy came to me while holding his family jewel and started crying. I looked at Ekiel and he was just standing there all big eyed and with his mouth open. He then ran to me and said, “Mommy, see, I am not so naughty now kan?” I just looked at him and nodded. He does have a point but I was not going to let him know that. He then told the eldest, not to hit the youngest and said, “No blessing that, you hit M”.

I tried to distract everyone by having a contest. Anyone who sings to me will get a surprise gift. Ekiel said he wants to sing the ABCs. Now, Ekiel has this bad habit for being a very sore loser. He doesn’t like it when he loses or when other people make fun of him when he doesn’t know stuff. Those three boys would surely make fun of Ekiel as he is not very good with his alphabet so I crossed my fingers and braced myself for the drama.

When he managed to sing the ABCs perfectly, I did my happy dance. I didn’t realise how much he has learned in school. Only last night I realised he now recognises the entire alphabet. *claps hand*

My Mom: T O M Tom

Ekiel: T O M Tom

My Mom: One more time. T O M Tom

Ekiel: T O M Tom

My Mom: How you spell TOM?
Ekiel: S T C A R S Tom.

So okay, he needs to work on the spelling bit. The funny thing is, he is at a phase where he spells everything he sees. Yes, none of the spelling is correct and after a while it can be annoying. He is also irritating when he corrects you correcting him.

Me: C O W cow

Ekiel: Mommy, that is wrong. C is for cat.

Aiseyman.

It's obvious, Ekiel has no talent in drawing. Yes people, that is his drawing of a nose

TGIA!

Thank goodness it's April!

*wipes forehead in relief*

March was painful. It was like a month long headache fest. Last night, I seriously thought the whole family needs to mandi bunga or something BUT when we find out what happened, I sighed with relief BUT I begin to worry about something else.

My sister’s car wouldn’t start in the morning. In the evening, my dad went to buy bread and his car wouldn’t start too. Later, he realised that the clutch was in drive mode, not neutral. My mom laughed at him but when I looked at my dad, I see a tired old man and it is sad that at his age, he stills need to drive me around and sometimes do my errands. *head hangs in shame*

As I tossed and turned in bed with Ekiel’s soft snores as my soundtrack this morning, I realised a drastic change is inevitable and today is a good day to do it.

Ekiel: Mommy, I want to be a baby again.

Me: Why?

Ekiel: It’s hard to be a big boy.

By the way, I registered Ekiel in Shan Tao primary school. The nice lady told me to fill a form which I did and when I handed it to her, she asked me what Ekiel’s Chinese name is. I looked at the form and I looked at her and replied, “like in the birth certificate, he has no Chinese name” to which the lady replied, “no worries, we will give him one when he starts school”.

What does she mean by that?

Then she told me that by October 2011, I would need to call the school back to see if Ekiel is accepted as a student. I blinked a couple of times and asked her if I heard her right. October 2011? Apparently, registration does not guarantee a spot as they have limited spots. They can only accommodate over 300 children and Ekiel was the 411^th child to register which I understand. But why so late I asked her. She casually replied, “that’s the education department’s procedures”.

This is my first time registering a child for primary school and to avoid conflict with the lady which may affect Ekiel’s chances of going to that school [though she has no power whatsoever, but just in case!], I just nod my head to accept the fact that I have to wait for over a year to find out if Ekiel is accepted to this school with chances of me forgetting to check this next year is and screw everything up is VERY high.

I was THE 411^th parent to register their child. Other parents must have waited outside the school gate the night before the registration opens.

Parents can be SO competitive kan? *whistles*

I wanted to bring Ekiel to dentist the other day to which he agrees because he gets to skip school. So, he doesn’t realize who the dentist is but I want to avoid the whole pre-drama and take my chances of him screaming his head of when the dentist starts to poke his mouth with his dental tools. UNFORTUNATELY some idiot at home decided it would be fun to tease him and told Ekiel that the dentist will pull out all his teeth and so on.

The next morning, Ekiel told me he rather goes to school. *bang heads on the wall*

To all the aunties and uncles out there, STOP IT OR I’LL BE SENDING YOU HIS ORTHODONTICS/PSYCHIATRIC BILL IN THE FUTURE. Thank you.