Saturday, August 8, 2009

I make my husband put down his job, so I don't have to tell them I work at Children's

If you want to be encouraged about your kids turning out okay, are pregnant, or really ever planning to have kids, NEVER have a neonatologist tell you stories. They will ALL sound like horror stories to the uninitiated (read: non-medical professionals). To us, they are hilarious.

Like your son getting bitten by a pit viper and sucked on by a leech in the span of 24 hours. "He says the snake bit him and THEN he threw a metal stick at it...but anyone who knows Kieran knows it was probably the other way around. I tried calling poison control, and the operator was like, 'Oh, they're closed.'"

Or delivering a baby and having him turn blue and start snorting within minutes. "I just said, 'He's fine, he just needs to acclimate a little bit.'" "And they LISTENED to you?" "Well, she didn't take a lot of convincing. And I knew they were just going to whisk him away to the NICU and poke him and put him on CPAP, and at the time, it sounded like a good idea. I don't know, I was so drugged up I couldn't stay awake."

Or any number of things that land you on a first name basis with the urgent care docs and the overpowering desire to hide the fact that you are a DOCTOR to the nurses in the emergency room. "My husband made me bring her in. Next time, he's putting HIS job on there, cause you know as soon as you leave, they're talking about you."

And those are just the neonatologists' kids.

Also what I've learned is that if someone codes (heart stops beating or they stop breathing), the phones and overhead pages may or MAY NOT tell you what is going on and might lead to a slight delay in qualified people responding; but if a parent brings in Scotcharoos to the break room, it only takes 37.4 seconds for everyone on the floor to know that they're there. Same thing with free ice cream day. Priorities, people.

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