Salve Regina
God save the Queen, or at least the principessa...
At times like these I retract all of my snotty commentary about health insurance for poor people and thank myself profusely for having gotten insurance for her before her sixth birthday. Mostly she is in good health, in fact her check-up the other day was the second doctor's visit since we have lived in S.B., the last one being her five-year check-up, but the difference this year, of course, is that because I am "low income" (as if we weren't last year) instead of a $20 co-pay, I only paid $5... And man, what a temptation to go back, in fact, whatever back assward economists that crunch the numbers on the health care industry can crunch this, because back we went, a week later, hungry for more doctor's visits, yes indeed. Of course, all this could have been avoided had the doctor more seriously considered the fluid in her ear then, instead of waiting until she was howling in pain, just at the precise moment that I was in complete crisis and unable to go get her (ok, I was, uncharacteristically, at the hairdresser).
When we went to the doctor's office again, we pay another five dollars and I am tempted to set up two more appointments, just so I can spend the full twenty, and she complains of severe leg pain, and he is telling me that it is probably viral, while I am suggesting he might want to check for strep throat, and sure enough her throat looks funny, but he does a double take when he looks inside her ears. Poor baby has never had an ear infection before in her life (there are advantages to breastfeeding.)
"Whoa!" he cries, "we don't need to do a culture, we'll just give her an antibiotic that'll knock everything out!" I feel slightly smug, but only until I look over at my sweet little person clinging to me, in a post-feverish twitter. It is at these times that I wish I could offer up my own body for the flesh of my flesh and the blood of my blood, and take away the pain of my most beloved creature. Why couldn't it be me instead?
So my productivity is shot, in the week that I was so hoping to be productive, and I only manage to finish my classwork a day early, and read a story by Lugones and finish the Cela novel about a violently impulsive protagonist for whom I feel very little sympathy. And there was some undisclosed tragedy/ "disruption" during a math exam this morning, and I wonder if it isn't more of the insidious violence that seems to be spreading like atomized spores, and I am on my way to getting her when her teacher calls me to see if she will be in school tomorrow, to which I reply, yes, I think so, and explain that the doctor had asked me to keep her home another day before the $5 antibiotic (my insurance saved me $84) which is thick pink liquid that needs to be refrigerated and smells an awful lot like the cat antibiotic that we are always having to force feed the kitties, and I think of poor Jenny and her multiple thousand dollar cat bills, but I know she will laugh with me about this too, over our late night dissertation disections, kicks in... Whew.
My therapist comments that I am "high energy" which I take to be a euphemism for "exceedingly high-strung" which is so highly amusing because I am so good at appearing cool, calm and collected... But this wasn't about me, but rather the small person who has fallen asleep next to me, patiently waiting for me to read, because I promised, but I let her sleep instead, after our celebratory excursion to a different restaurant than the usual one for Indian food, (she made me, I wanted something different) because she is being named student of the month tomorrow and I don't, don't, don't want to let her think for one moment that her acheivments are unnoticed or unappreciated or taken for granted by me, so I beam with enthusiasm, and I congratulate her over and over, and I promise to leave the work that I will undoubtedly be in the middle of to go to the school cafeteria and watch her walk across stage, smiling inwardly because she has been a better listener, and she is good at math (she and I have been discussing the concept of negative numbers, because one of her homework sheets was poorly designed and it looked like they were asking for that, which seemed a bit advanced for kindergarten, but heck, these kids are being pushed farther with this whole idiotic "no child left behind" crap that the moron-in-chief instituted before he actually started mass killing of children across the world, but don't mind me today, I am just on a bit of a roll.)
Even when everything else is rotten, I swear, she is the one thing that brings me well being. I am told that I have amazing patience, but the thing is, it doesn't feel like patience when she climbs under the table and wriggles her way up into my lap because she needs huggies, it just feels right.
At times like these I retract all of my snotty commentary about health insurance for poor people and thank myself profusely for having gotten insurance for her before her sixth birthday. Mostly she is in good health, in fact her check-up the other day was the second doctor's visit since we have lived in S.B., the last one being her five-year check-up, but the difference this year, of course, is that because I am "low income" (as if we weren't last year) instead of a $20 co-pay, I only paid $5... And man, what a temptation to go back, in fact, whatever back assward economists that crunch the numbers on the health care industry can crunch this, because back we went, a week later, hungry for more doctor's visits, yes indeed. Of course, all this could have been avoided had the doctor more seriously considered the fluid in her ear then, instead of waiting until she was howling in pain, just at the precise moment that I was in complete crisis and unable to go get her (ok, I was, uncharacteristically, at the hairdresser).
When we went to the doctor's office again, we pay another five dollars and I am tempted to set up two more appointments, just so I can spend the full twenty, and she complains of severe leg pain, and he is telling me that it is probably viral, while I am suggesting he might want to check for strep throat, and sure enough her throat looks funny, but he does a double take when he looks inside her ears. Poor baby has never had an ear infection before in her life (there are advantages to breastfeeding.)
"Whoa!" he cries, "we don't need to do a culture, we'll just give her an antibiotic that'll knock everything out!" I feel slightly smug, but only until I look over at my sweet little person clinging to me, in a post-feverish twitter. It is at these times that I wish I could offer up my own body for the flesh of my flesh and the blood of my blood, and take away the pain of my most beloved creature. Why couldn't it be me instead?
So my productivity is shot, in the week that I was so hoping to be productive, and I only manage to finish my classwork a day early, and read a story by Lugones and finish the Cela novel about a violently impulsive protagonist for whom I feel very little sympathy. And there was some undisclosed tragedy/ "disruption" during a math exam this morning, and I wonder if it isn't more of the insidious violence that seems to be spreading like atomized spores, and I am on my way to getting her when her teacher calls me to see if she will be in school tomorrow, to which I reply, yes, I think so, and explain that the doctor had asked me to keep her home another day before the $5 antibiotic (my insurance saved me $84) which is thick pink liquid that needs to be refrigerated and smells an awful lot like the cat antibiotic that we are always having to force feed the kitties, and I think of poor Jenny and her multiple thousand dollar cat bills, but I know she will laugh with me about this too, over our late night dissertation disections, kicks in... Whew.
My therapist comments that I am "high energy" which I take to be a euphemism for "exceedingly high-strung" which is so highly amusing because I am so good at appearing cool, calm and collected... But this wasn't about me, but rather the small person who has fallen asleep next to me, patiently waiting for me to read, because I promised, but I let her sleep instead, after our celebratory excursion to a different restaurant than the usual one for Indian food, (she made me, I wanted something different) because she is being named student of the month tomorrow and I don't, don't, don't want to let her think for one moment that her acheivments are unnoticed or unappreciated or taken for granted by me, so I beam with enthusiasm, and I congratulate her over and over, and I promise to leave the work that I will undoubtedly be in the middle of to go to the school cafeteria and watch her walk across stage, smiling inwardly because she has been a better listener, and she is good at math (she and I have been discussing the concept of negative numbers, because one of her homework sheets was poorly designed and it looked like they were asking for that, which seemed a bit advanced for kindergarten, but heck, these kids are being pushed farther with this whole idiotic "no child left behind" crap that the moron-in-chief instituted before he actually started mass killing of children across the world, but don't mind me today, I am just on a bit of a roll.)
Even when everything else is rotten, I swear, she is the one thing that brings me well being. I am told that I have amazing patience, but the thing is, it doesn't feel like patience when she climbs under the table and wriggles her way up into my lap because she needs huggies, it just feels right.
posted by ilana at 8:11 p.m.
2 Comments:
me gustó. You know I am sure you are a great mommy. And reading about that type of insurance sparkles again the old idea of the Socialist States of America.
Sole, sole... if you only knew ;)
Ah yes, medicine for the masses, but then, how could we possibly control all that rabble?
Too bad my university insurance doesn't necessarily cover the visit to the endocrinolgist (yes, btw, I did get the referral and make the appointment). But that is another story for another day.
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