Photo taken by AJ
We went to the paediatrician last Monday.
Ivy’s ears were awful and I was at my wits end with what to do with them and the girl, who was getting sicker by the day.
After months of wellness.
The appointment was typical. He checked her ears, weighed her and talked to me about the mess that is her bloodwork.
Ears: gross
Weight: a loss of 400g
Bloods: still anaemic.
He noted, with disappointment, the loss in her weight and I defended her, and myself; I’m doing the best I can, she always loses when she’s sick. What more can I do?
He nodded and sighed because, there was not much for him to do.
The oral antibiotics had failed her.
The ear drops were barely making a dent in the goop that was errupting from her ears.
To him, the appointment had been pointless. His only job; a referral to the ENT doctor.
Again.
For me, I had touched base with her doctor and felt like I was not alone in her care
and for Ivy?
Well, a chance to have her body healed, I guess.
The receptionist mentioned how well she looked and I smiled away my loathing for that sentence. She looked at me in a sympathetic way,
“It must be hard, not to panic, you know, to not be able to let go, when she has been so unwell for such a long time”.
I looked at her, I’m sure, my mouth agape but instead of stopping there, she kept going.
“Look at her though, she’s SO well now and you can relax.
You can stop being so overprotective.”
I’m not really sure what I said after that, the emotions that I felt were like a punch in the guts and everything was a blur after that first whoosh of air escaped.
Is that how they saw me?
Overprotective?
One of those parents who jump at the first sniffle or sneeze?
I have come to learn, through all of this, that everyone has an opinion on how I should behave, what I should do, how I should cope and the receptionist is certainly no different. In her eyes, Ivy is cured and we no longer have a need for the paed’s services as we once did.
That’s probably true in some respects but Ivy’s journey is far from over and my expectation that the paediatrician would manage her, I thought, was not too left of field.
Apparently though, it is.
Apparently, I am too overprotective.
Even after twelve days of tending to Ivy illness on my own, seeing the good doctor, conceding defeat, is suddenly a flaw in my character.
Maybe she didn’t mean it that way.
Maybe I mistook her attitude for something it wasn’t.
Maybe I should just add oversensitive to my overprotective label ( I was not feeling like mother of the year that day)
or
maybe other people should stop and think before they pass judgement.
I’d love to know how she would cope, walking in my shoes, how she would do things differently.
I have a hunch that the overprotective label would never enter her vocabulary line up again.
Also blogging at Three Ring Circus