Continued from my post about my difficult child's experiences with his Dr appts......
The next day we had our appointment with the pediatrician. psychologist. Let me tell you, this was the most horrible experience I have ever had in my life with a Dr. My husband went with me to this appointment as well. Our appointment was scheduled for 1pm and when the office called to confirm, they wanted us to come in 15 minutes early to fill out paperwork. We arrived at 12:45, but other than ourselves, there was NO ONE in the office! My husband had to be at work by 3pm and has a 1 hour commute. We were told that the appointment would last an hour. Ten minutes after 1, we finally hear voices in the back of the office, we assume they have been at lunch. Nope....a lady appears in the reception area with a client at the check out windown paying for her visit. I go to the glas partician window and the lady opens it and apologies but their staff has Friday's off!?!? She hands me a clipboard with a few papers on it and says, I am not sure these are all the papers, but if they are not, (Dr. name) will give you the missing forms. Uhhh....
I fill out the 4 pages...none of which ask for any sort of information at all. Nothing that even included billing information like my address. All of them were just release forms that I just sign my name at the bottom and date.
About 10 minutes later (now approaching 1:30) I tell my husband, you don't have to stay if you can't...he has to get to work afterall! He said, no that he would stay...phew! The Dr. comes to the lobby and calls us back. Now...all this time, I am ASSUMING that since I made an appointment with a pediatrician. Psychologist office that I would see a Psychologist...wouldn't you? We get to her office, we sit in the chairs, my son sits on the couch and the Dr sits at her desk in a chair. She then introduces herself as a Physician's Assistant. WHAT? At this point, I am like...whatever, as long as you can help me and get the testing scheduled, I don't care who you are.
She asks my son how he is doing, he says fine...she says "Groovy." This apparently was her favorite word as she said it MANY times haha! She asks difficult child a lot of questions; who lives at home, pets, church, very basic questions which I figured she would ask. Then she turns to my husband and I and asks us several basic questions, including medical history. I tell him family (not immediate) history of clinical depression (my mom), ADD (my brother), and Asperger's Syndrome (not diagnosed...my husband's brother). She DID have my approx 20 pages of the Parent Assessment which I put in a binder including copies of my son's IEP from school when he had speech. She did say that she did read through it, but admitted she had not read it all. I was just glad she actually read any of it! :smile:
She asks my husband and I what specific event brought us here. So I explained the major blow up with my neighbor my son had (see my original post). She turned to my difficult child (9) and asked him what happened. My son starts to cry and explain his side of the story. This was very upsetting for me to see as I knew he was not comfortable telling this very emabarrassing story to someone he had never met before. She says to him...that must have been very scary for you...I see where this is going and stop it. I said look, we have been friends with these neighbors for almost 8 years now. We have cookouts, our kids play together etc. It was not until my neighbor told him to stop piling on top of his children in a game they were playing which resulted in their daughter crying out she couldn't breathe...that difficult child threw his tantrum resulting in the blow out. She at this point asks my son if he would mind waiting in the lobby while she talks with my husband and I. Mind you...there is NO ONE in this office besides my family and the Dr...but she is going to have him go wait in the empty lobby. Hindsight I would have thought about this.
She then proceeds to tell my husband that he has classic ADD. Now, my brother rememeber had ADD as a child and struggled with it VERY badly in school. My son is a straight A student, in a special gifted class learning algebra and analogies. She said his world is incredibly overstimulating for him and that she had tried to make eye contact with him at least 40 times and he was not able to make eye contact with her. I Said..RIGHT!!! That is possibly Autism!!!! She said, no I don't see any autism in him. I work with autistic and Asperger's kids and they are just not there when you talk with them. They are lost in a world of their own and he is just not in any way autistic. I show her the pictures from preschool of the vetical lines. She says, he did that because that was something he could control in his overstimulated world. I told her about his food issues dating back to when he was weaned from baby food. She said that was his way of controlling us and others. I said, so a 2 year old can have the mindset to do something like this, even to at 9 years old today? Even though he gags and physically gets sick when trying anything new. She said ohhh yes! (her game was up by this point in my book, I knew she was dead wrong..certainly some kids might do this, but I can NOT imagine to the extreme this child is). I did try to "catch her" so to speak and asked her....does an ADD child typically have problems with reading out loud and sounding robotic and skip words even though their reading comprehension is 3 grade levels above where they currently are? She did admit at that point that no, there could also be a neurological aspect to this as well.
She said she can give him some medication that will calm his world down for him and not make things so overwhelming for him so he can make better decisions without shutting down. I said my husband and I were Adamently against medicating this child. She said...well what if you had diabetes? I stopped her before she went on.... I said look, I am NOT against the use of medication; my husband is on thyroid medications, I am on blood pressure medications. I AM against the use of medications as a first line of defense when we do not even know what is going on with him! She said she agreed with me at this point. Talk about having to go on the defensive...thanks "doctor."
From there the appointment was just no longer productive because she didn't want to hear anything really that the neurologist was concerned about...she had made her "diagnosis" probably before we walked into the room by reading whatever parts she had read in that Parent Assessment/Report. She recommeneded councelling sessions with the psychologist so he can learn to make better choices. She did say that we should go ahead and have any testing done, but never suggested that their office could do the testing.
My husband left for work as I was trying to check out...they of course could no take any sort of payment because the office staff was not there and the PA didn't know how to do that. I have no idea how they are going to bill me without any sort of billing information! I went home and as I was driving home with my son, he said....Mom, you know why I was upset when I was telling the story? Of course I am DYING to hear what he has to say since the PA suggested he was afraid of my neighbor. He said...because I was frustrated and didn't want to talk about it. I told him that was perfectly okay and thanked him for telling me. I felt so bad for him for being put in that position at all.
I called the neurologist office and they will call me Monday to refer me to a Neuropsycholgist for the testing he desperately needs.
I will keep everyone posted...I am sorry this got so long. My husband called me when he got to work by the way....he was just as frustrated with the entire appointment as I was although he was pretty quiet the entire time. I was very relieved as until that phone call, I didn't know how he felt. I am happy to know we are on the same page. :smile:
Have a great day!
Rachel
The next day we had our appointment with the pediatrician. psychologist. Let me tell you, this was the most horrible experience I have ever had in my life with a Dr. My husband went with me to this appointment as well. Our appointment was scheduled for 1pm and when the office called to confirm, they wanted us to come in 15 minutes early to fill out paperwork. We arrived at 12:45, but other than ourselves, there was NO ONE in the office! My husband had to be at work by 3pm and has a 1 hour commute. We were told that the appointment would last an hour. Ten minutes after 1, we finally hear voices in the back of the office, we assume they have been at lunch. Nope....a lady appears in the reception area with a client at the check out windown paying for her visit. I go to the glas partician window and the lady opens it and apologies but their staff has Friday's off!?!? She hands me a clipboard with a few papers on it and says, I am not sure these are all the papers, but if they are not, (Dr. name) will give you the missing forms. Uhhh....
I fill out the 4 pages...none of which ask for any sort of information at all. Nothing that even included billing information like my address. All of them were just release forms that I just sign my name at the bottom and date.
About 10 minutes later (now approaching 1:30) I tell my husband, you don't have to stay if you can't...he has to get to work afterall! He said, no that he would stay...phew! The Dr. comes to the lobby and calls us back. Now...all this time, I am ASSUMING that since I made an appointment with a pediatrician. Psychologist office that I would see a Psychologist...wouldn't you? We get to her office, we sit in the chairs, my son sits on the couch and the Dr sits at her desk in a chair. She then introduces herself as a Physician's Assistant. WHAT? At this point, I am like...whatever, as long as you can help me and get the testing scheduled, I don't care who you are.
She asks my son how he is doing, he says fine...she says "Groovy." This apparently was her favorite word as she said it MANY times haha! She asks difficult child a lot of questions; who lives at home, pets, church, very basic questions which I figured she would ask. Then she turns to my husband and I and asks us several basic questions, including medical history. I tell him family (not immediate) history of clinical depression (my mom), ADD (my brother), and Asperger's Syndrome (not diagnosed...my husband's brother). She DID have my approx 20 pages of the Parent Assessment which I put in a binder including copies of my son's IEP from school when he had speech. She did say that she did read through it, but admitted she had not read it all. I was just glad she actually read any of it! :smile:
She asks my husband and I what specific event brought us here. So I explained the major blow up with my neighbor my son had (see my original post). She turned to my difficult child (9) and asked him what happened. My son starts to cry and explain his side of the story. This was very upsetting for me to see as I knew he was not comfortable telling this very emabarrassing story to someone he had never met before. She says to him...that must have been very scary for you...I see where this is going and stop it. I said look, we have been friends with these neighbors for almost 8 years now. We have cookouts, our kids play together etc. It was not until my neighbor told him to stop piling on top of his children in a game they were playing which resulted in their daughter crying out she couldn't breathe...that difficult child threw his tantrum resulting in the blow out. She at this point asks my son if he would mind waiting in the lobby while she talks with my husband and I. Mind you...there is NO ONE in this office besides my family and the Dr...but she is going to have him go wait in the empty lobby. Hindsight I would have thought about this.
She then proceeds to tell my husband that he has classic ADD. Now, my brother rememeber had ADD as a child and struggled with it VERY badly in school. My son is a straight A student, in a special gifted class learning algebra and analogies. She said his world is incredibly overstimulating for him and that she had tried to make eye contact with him at least 40 times and he was not able to make eye contact with her. I Said..RIGHT!!! That is possibly Autism!!!! She said, no I don't see any autism in him. I work with autistic and Asperger's kids and they are just not there when you talk with them. They are lost in a world of their own and he is just not in any way autistic. I show her the pictures from preschool of the vetical lines. She says, he did that because that was something he could control in his overstimulated world. I told her about his food issues dating back to when he was weaned from baby food. She said that was his way of controlling us and others. I said, so a 2 year old can have the mindset to do something like this, even to at 9 years old today? Even though he gags and physically gets sick when trying anything new. She said ohhh yes! (her game was up by this point in my book, I knew she was dead wrong..certainly some kids might do this, but I can NOT imagine to the extreme this child is). I did try to "catch her" so to speak and asked her....does an ADD child typically have problems with reading out loud and sounding robotic and skip words even though their reading comprehension is 3 grade levels above where they currently are? She did admit at that point that no, there could also be a neurological aspect to this as well.
She said she can give him some medication that will calm his world down for him and not make things so overwhelming for him so he can make better decisions without shutting down. I said my husband and I were Adamently against medicating this child. She said...well what if you had diabetes? I stopped her before she went on.... I said look, I am NOT against the use of medication; my husband is on thyroid medications, I am on blood pressure medications. I AM against the use of medications as a first line of defense when we do not even know what is going on with him! She said she agreed with me at this point. Talk about having to go on the defensive...thanks "doctor."
From there the appointment was just no longer productive because she didn't want to hear anything really that the neurologist was concerned about...she had made her "diagnosis" probably before we walked into the room by reading whatever parts she had read in that Parent Assessment/Report. She recommeneded councelling sessions with the psychologist so he can learn to make better choices. She did say that we should go ahead and have any testing done, but never suggested that their office could do the testing.
My husband left for work as I was trying to check out...they of course could no take any sort of payment because the office staff was not there and the PA didn't know how to do that. I have no idea how they are going to bill me without any sort of billing information! I went home and as I was driving home with my son, he said....Mom, you know why I was upset when I was telling the story? Of course I am DYING to hear what he has to say since the PA suggested he was afraid of my neighbor. He said...because I was frustrated and didn't want to talk about it. I told him that was perfectly okay and thanked him for telling me. I felt so bad for him for being put in that position at all.
I called the neurologist office and they will call me Monday to refer me to a Neuropsycholgist for the testing he desperately needs.
I will keep everyone posted...I am sorry this got so long. My husband called me when he got to work by the way....he was just as frustrated with the entire appointment as I was although he was pretty quiet the entire time. I was very relieved as until that phone call, I didn't know how he felt. I am happy to know we are on the same page. :smile:
Have a great day!
Rachel
