So as everyone knows, Bransyn has been having a bit of a coughing problem for the past almost 7 months & we have not been able to figure out the cause of it. I have taken him in to the doctor numerous times, trying to figure out how to get my baby to stop coughing, with no luck. Each time they thought it was, or could be, something different:
{These are all just the times they would allow me to take him in... not including phone calls to see what else to do}
Oct. just a cold
Mid. Nov. after 3 weeks of the cough not going away after the cold, ear infection
End Nov. prescription for a 4-day steroid to help the cough. helped for a few days, then back to normal
Dec. dr. didn't hear him cough, but said it might be croup since it was going around at the time -- definitely not croup
Jan. lungs sounded wheezy, could be asthma or bronchialitis, started breathing treatments with albuteral in a nebulizer
Feb. breathing treatments didn't work as well as it should of, started singular for a month trial
The singular did not change anything, and at this point, Bransyn is coughing SO hard, that he is throwing up daily. I called in to his dr's office to talk to his dr to see what I should do. And can I just say, I am NOT a fan of this office. I call & talk to the receptionist, explain what's going on & tell her that Dr. Smith told me to call & talk to her if the Singular did not work, so we could figure out where to go next. The girl says, 'Oh hmm, Well I don't even know what to do. . . let me send you to her assistant's (for lack of a better word... forgot what they called her!) line & you can tell her what's going on.' Okay, fine. If that gets me closer to talking to the actual doctor, then I'll do it. So I get transferred. It rings. & rings. & rings. Annnnnnd rings. Finally, I get to the voicemail & was about to leave a message when I hear 'I'm sorry, this person is not accepting any voice messages at this time.' (or something along those lines) GREAAAAT. So I call back a while later, hoping to get a different person. I do. I explain what happened earlier, & that I really needed to talk to an actual person. She says the saaaame thing to me, though & transfers me to another line. SAME FREAKING LINE I GOT TRANSFERRED TO BEFORE, after telling her what had happened the last time. So I call back, & by now as you can imagine, I was not happy at ALL. I got the same girl & told her, as nicely as I possibly could, (which was probably not very nice at all, really) that I did not want to be sent to any more voicemails that were not taking any messages, cause I definitely needed SOMEONE to get my dang message! She told me that she doesn't know why they aren't answering, cause they were in their office at the time. Um, does anybody know how to do their job anymore?! Seriously, redic. So anyways, she just tells me that she'll just write a message for Dr. Smith to call me back. Surprisingly, it only takes her about 2 hours to call back (I thought it wouldn't be til the next day, at least) She asked me questions about how his coughing sounded, when he coughs the most, ect. I told her about how he was now throwing up from coughing too hard & nothing was helping. She asked about a few other things so that she could, FINALLY, look more into it. (only took SIX months of this for her to do that, nice right?) Then she said that she wanted to get an X-ray of his chest/lungs to see if they could see any problems in there & she would have a requisition form waiting at the front desk in the office so we could take him in whenever we wanted. And also, she was going to see if medicaid would cover for him to go see an Allergy & Asthma specialist, so that he could get allergy testing. (agian... SIX months to do this?! I have been asking from the freaking beginning for a specialist!) So I decided that we needed to get him in for his X-ray ASAP, so after I got done babysitting that day, me, Ry & B all headed over there. Went up to the office, got the form & went back downstairs to imaging. Got him all registered, or so I thought. The stupid dr's office didn't put the 'reason' he was getting this x-ray. So imaging had us wait for them to call up to the pediatricians office to have them re-do the form & fax it down. (Can I just say LAZY?! This place was DOWNSTAIRS from the pedi's office. Hell, I would of even ran up there real quick to have them fill out one little part on the form.) So we wait. & wait. & WAIT. For over an hour. Finally, the girl tells me that they faxed the form back, gave it to me & told us to just wait for the tech to call us back. I look at the form to see exactly what it was they were missing, & in this little box on the side that was meant for the reason for x-ray, they had written 'cough'
...
...
...
SERIOUSLY?!
They had us freaking wait over an hour, while we watched about 6 people that came in AFTER us, be called back & be finished with their x-ray before he got in. For them to FAX a paper 2 floors up for the word 'cough' to be written on it. SO beyond ridiculous & irritating!
Needless to say, I am switching his pediatrician. I'm sick of them being so inconsiderate & not ever knowing what to do. Or even taking the time to actually LOOK INTO SOMETHING, to help my baby... you know, what they SHOULD do in a situation like this.
So anyways. We get him back there & get him ready for his x-ray. They got me & Ry some 'suites' to wear, to protect ourselves. Then they said to take his shirts off, & lay him on his back on this flat, black square thingy. TOTALLY not what I was expecting! haha, Bransyn did SO well! He just layed there & held still while they got the first x-ray. Then they had to get one from the side, so we turned him onto his side & he didn't like that too much. He cried, but still held still. Then we had to wait for a sec for the tech's to make sure they both turned out okay, which they both did! I am so proud of how well Bransyn did! He is such a brave boy! (: So they tell me that his pedi should be calling me the next day with the results. So the next day I am waiting alll day for the call. I figured I wouldn't get it until later afternoon, since they didn't get the x-ray done until late afternoon the previous day. Well, no call. AT ALL. So the next day, I decided that I was not even gonna wait for them to call me, I was calling in. Well I call in & once again... have to leave a message to have the Dr. call me back. Moooooore waiting. (can you tell that I was VERY sick of waiting at this point?! ha, for realll)
She finally calls me back & told me that they did find some inflammation in his lungs, which would most likely mean he has some kind of a virus, or asthma. Okay... not the first time I've heard that! Then she tells me that she did get him a referral to Dr. Pinna, an allergy & asthma specialist & I just needed to call & make the appointment! So I called & got him not one, but two appointments scheduled. Medicaid actually won't cover the visits, unless we have a consultation with the dr first. So I had that scheduled for Friday, the 9th & to have allergy testing done on the 13th. Well, they called me yesterday & let me know that they had a cancellation & could bring him in that day! So of course I told them yes & headed over there right after I got off work. We met the Dr, which... I must say was as hyper as a little kid after drinking 3 soda's! haha. I dunno, maybe that's just how he is... but it was a little strange. Funny, but strange! haha. He asks me a few questions to find out more about what's going on. Then he listened to his lungs & said that they didn't sound the way they do with asthma, or bronchiolitis. (the way they had before, when they didn't sound 'perfect') He said that they sounded more like he had some kind of infection, but an infection would not of lasted this long. He decided that we should try an inhaler on him. Since he had albuteral in his nebulizer & that didn't help, he decided to try something different (I forgot what it's called now!) We will do that once in the morning & once at night, right before he goes to bed & see how it works. He still has his next appointment on the 13, & I'm hoping that even if this helps, they will still do the allergy testing because I really feel like he needs it, so that we can find out exactly what the cause of his coughing is! But I am still hoping that this stuff will help anyways, because it is SO sad & hard seeing my baby always coughing & miserable. I just want him alll better!
I guess we'll see how things go on the 13th, though!
{These are all just the times they would allow me to take him in... not including phone calls to see what else to do}
Oct. just a cold
Mid. Nov. after 3 weeks of the cough not going away after the cold, ear infection
End Nov. prescription for a 4-day steroid to help the cough. helped for a few days, then back to normal
Dec. dr. didn't hear him cough, but said it might be croup since it was going around at the time -- definitely not croup
Jan. lungs sounded wheezy, could be asthma or bronchialitis, started breathing treatments with albuteral in a nebulizer
Feb. breathing treatments didn't work as well as it should of, started singular for a month trial
The singular did not change anything, and at this point, Bransyn is coughing SO hard, that he is throwing up daily. I called in to his dr's office to talk to his dr to see what I should do. And can I just say, I am NOT a fan of this office. I call & talk to the receptionist, explain what's going on & tell her that Dr. Smith told me to call & talk to her if the Singular did not work, so we could figure out where to go next. The girl says, 'Oh hmm, Well I don't even know what to do. . . let me send you to her assistant's (for lack of a better word... forgot what they called her!) line & you can tell her what's going on.' Okay, fine. If that gets me closer to talking to the actual doctor, then I'll do it. So I get transferred. It rings. & rings. & rings. Annnnnnd rings. Finally, I get to the voicemail & was about to leave a message when I hear 'I'm sorry, this person is not accepting any voice messages at this time.' (or something along those lines) GREAAAAT. So I call back a while later, hoping to get a different person. I do. I explain what happened earlier, & that I really needed to talk to an actual person. She says the saaaame thing to me, though & transfers me to another line. SAME FREAKING LINE I GOT TRANSFERRED TO BEFORE, after telling her what had happened the last time. So I call back, & by now as you can imagine, I was not happy at ALL. I got the same girl & told her, as nicely as I possibly could, (which was probably not very nice at all, really) that I did not want to be sent to any more voicemails that were not taking any messages, cause I definitely needed SOMEONE to get my dang message! She told me that she doesn't know why they aren't answering, cause they were in their office at the time. Um, does anybody know how to do their job anymore?! Seriously, redic. So anyways, she just tells me that she'll just write a message for Dr. Smith to call me back. Surprisingly, it only takes her about 2 hours to call back (I thought it wouldn't be til the next day, at least) She asked me questions about how his coughing sounded, when he coughs the most, ect. I told her about how he was now throwing up from coughing too hard & nothing was helping. She asked about a few other things so that she could, FINALLY, look more into it. (only took SIX months of this for her to do that, nice right?) Then she said that she wanted to get an X-ray of his chest/lungs to see if they could see any problems in there & she would have a requisition form waiting at the front desk in the office so we could take him in whenever we wanted. And also, she was going to see if medicaid would cover for him to go see an Allergy & Asthma specialist, so that he could get allergy testing. (agian... SIX months to do this?! I have been asking from the freaking beginning for a specialist!) So I decided that we needed to get him in for his X-ray ASAP, so after I got done babysitting that day, me, Ry & B all headed over there. Went up to the office, got the form & went back downstairs to imaging. Got him all registered, or so I thought. The stupid dr's office didn't put the 'reason' he was getting this x-ray. So imaging had us wait for them to call up to the pediatricians office to have them re-do the form & fax it down. (Can I just say LAZY?! This place was DOWNSTAIRS from the pedi's office. Hell, I would of even ran up there real quick to have them fill out one little part on the form.) So we wait. & wait. & WAIT. For over an hour. Finally, the girl tells me that they faxed the form back, gave it to me & told us to just wait for the tech to call us back. I look at the form to see exactly what it was they were missing, & in this little box on the side that was meant for the reason for x-ray, they had written 'cough'
...
...
...
SERIOUSLY?!
They had us freaking wait over an hour, while we watched about 6 people that came in AFTER us, be called back & be finished with their x-ray before he got in. For them to FAX a paper 2 floors up for the word 'cough' to be written on it. SO beyond ridiculous & irritating!
Needless to say, I am switching his pediatrician. I'm sick of them being so inconsiderate & not ever knowing what to do. Or even taking the time to actually LOOK INTO SOMETHING, to help my baby... you know, what they SHOULD do in a situation like this.
So anyways. We get him back there & get him ready for his x-ray. They got me & Ry some 'suites' to wear, to protect ourselves. Then they said to take his shirts off, & lay him on his back on this flat, black square thingy. TOTALLY not what I was expecting! haha, Bransyn did SO well! He just layed there & held still while they got the first x-ray. Then they had to get one from the side, so we turned him onto his side & he didn't like that too much. He cried, but still held still. Then we had to wait for a sec for the tech's to make sure they both turned out okay, which they both did! I am so proud of how well Bransyn did! He is such a brave boy! (: So they tell me that his pedi should be calling me the next day with the results. So the next day I am waiting alll day for the call. I figured I wouldn't get it until later afternoon, since they didn't get the x-ray done until late afternoon the previous day. Well, no call. AT ALL. So the next day, I decided that I was not even gonna wait for them to call me, I was calling in. Well I call in & once again... have to leave a message to have the Dr. call me back. Moooooore waiting. (can you tell that I was VERY sick of waiting at this point?! ha, for realll)
She finally calls me back & told me that they did find some inflammation in his lungs, which would most likely mean he has some kind of a virus, or asthma. Okay... not the first time I've heard that! Then she tells me that she did get him a referral to Dr. Pinna, an allergy & asthma specialist & I just needed to call & make the appointment! So I called & got him not one, but two appointments scheduled. Medicaid actually won't cover the visits, unless we have a consultation with the dr first. So I had that scheduled for Friday, the 9th & to have allergy testing done on the 13th. Well, they called me yesterday & let me know that they had a cancellation & could bring him in that day! So of course I told them yes & headed over there right after I got off work. We met the Dr, which... I must say was as hyper as a little kid after drinking 3 soda's! haha. I dunno, maybe that's just how he is... but it was a little strange. Funny, but strange! haha. He asks me a few questions to find out more about what's going on. Then he listened to his lungs & said that they didn't sound the way they do with asthma, or bronchiolitis. (the way they had before, when they didn't sound 'perfect') He said that they sounded more like he had some kind of infection, but an infection would not of lasted this long. He decided that we should try an inhaler on him. Since he had albuteral in his nebulizer & that didn't help, he decided to try something different (I forgot what it's called now!) We will do that once in the morning & once at night, right before he goes to bed & see how it works. He still has his next appointment on the 13, & I'm hoping that even if this helps, they will still do the allergy testing because I really feel like he needs it, so that we can find out exactly what the cause of his coughing is! But I am still hoping that this stuff will help anyways, because it is SO sad & hard seeing my baby always coughing & miserable. I just want him alll better!
I guess we'll see how things go on the 13th, though!
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