Well today was shaping up to be an easy, breezy day. As my 'Summer of Mike' winds to a close (well, maybe the 'Month of Mike'), I am enjoying every day. Too bad much of it is spent studying for boards.... But there is ample, ample time to surf the Internet.
Today was just like all the previous. Woke up early. Did some reading. Talked to the contractors. Listened to grinding in the basement. Took my midday nap. Went to the grocery store and got a sub. I looked at the rest of my schedule on my phone. (Yes, I have a schedule!)
To my surprise, there was something on it that I forgot: Pediatric Class. (Editors Note: It seems recently that there has been much much debate between the GC and I as to certain things. She says I forget too much, I think she never tells me stuff. This goes on and on and on. She's about 75% right. Today, she was in that 75%).
Damn! Well, at least we'll do it together. Oh wait, during the GC's lunchhour today, she called. "Sorry babe, I have to admit patients late tonight. You'll have to go alone." Um... er... um... Don't you think it'll be weird if I show up without a mom-to-be. "No. DO IT!"
Double Damn!!! So, what is Pediatric Class, you might wonder? Well, it turns out that you have to search for pediatricians before your pop out a BY. Seriously. I just thought it was different. I figured that all the peds were waiting on call, and whoever was next on deck when you popped, got your baby. Turns out that is not so; not in this modern medicine day and age. So, the GC's OB gave her a list of peds to call. The GC, being the extremely wise woman that she is, searched for the closest office. Perfect! There was one across the street from the hospital and the OB. This place only takes new patients as newborns, and you have to do this class first. Ergo, the Editor was nominated to secure the BY's future pediatrician. Since I wasn't working, or winning the bread, I had no excuse. Damn!
So I get there and walk in. A nice, bubbly dude was there greeting people as they walked in. Nice looking guy. Young. Had a mop for a head of hair, and looked younger than I. Hmmm... I don't know about this.
"Hey I'm Dr Edwards." Hi, I'm Dr Yarnoz! (Editors Note: Sometimes I get into these funks where I don't like it when people introduce themselves as Doctor. It kinda gets annoying. As one who has been through training for 7 years, you see these types. They're usually the interns, who are so excited to be doctors. They page you and answer, this is Dr Smith! I hate it. But then I realized that he didn't know I was a doctor; I left my lab coat at home. So I forgave him.)
"Hey, I'm Mike."
"Where's your wife?"
"Oh, she's workin'. Makin me some money!!" Some other pregnant ladies looked over aghast. Hey, ladies! You can support the Editor too.
"OK. Well, Dad's take care of kids too. Have a seat."
He damn puts me right in front. I hate being in front. Damn the GC!!! So we wait until all the other golfcarts waddle in. Man there were many different shapes and sizes. One poor golfcart looked like she was like 5 weeks past due... every movement brought cringes of pain to her face. Damn. Finally, all the carts are seated now. 17 prospectives! Wow. Supposedly this class was to last from 5:30 until 6:30. Somehow I didn't see that happening. Damn, damn the GC!!!
So the mop-doc starts talking. Pretty nice guy. Good speaker and pretty well read. About 5 mins into his talk, he mentions where the bathrooms were. About 3 golfcarts jumped up, and waddled away. I chuckled. Ahhh! For the remainder of the talk, roughly 1 golfcart had to pee almost every 10 minutes. That seemed about right. One poor lady went like 6 times. Wow!
So the class is going on. Yada yada yada. The mop-doc then made the mistake of saying that if anyone had questions, to please ask away. Uh Oh.... this aint going to be an hour. We talked about a lot of stuff. Peeing, pooping, sleeping, eating, vaccines.... Questions peppered the discussion. Some good... others... well....
"Can my baby sleep on that little changing pad off the side of the pack-n-play?" Seriously. I don't remember what this looked like, but seems really small. "No. There are too small, and the baby could roll over." Whew! Crisis averted.
"Can my baby get cancer from vaccinations?" What?!?!?! er... WHAT!?!?! I tried to see who asked that one, but then realized that my turning around a complete 180 degrees with this look of disgust on my face would have been too much. Mop-doc took it in stride... "No. They can't."
Now, invariably in every little discussion or classroom session or lecture, there is always one person who thinks that this is their own private discussion. You, loyal BY viewers, must know what I am talking about. These people have no deference to the other listeners. They feel like the instructor is there for them only, and then they just ask question after question after question. Some questions so freakin specific that they should be asked after the group session is over, to spare the other poor souls. They keep yammering on, even with mean stares from the other attendees. Well, this session had 2 of these people. Yes, it did!
Annoying questioner #1: (The original reason for this rant.) She started going off about vaccines and standard of care. She asked about Jenny McCarthy and autism and vaccines. This was, actually, a good question. I saw an episode of Eli Stone once that dealt with this issue, so I thought it was true. Turns out, according to mop-doc, it is absolutely false. Whew! Good man that mop-doc. But the lady didn't end there. More questions pelted the mop-doc. "Are you sure?" "What about other diseases?" "What are the standards of care?" "What do you think about the WHO and their standards of care?" ... wa!? Whoa, lady! WTF!?!?! This shook me from a daydream about Jenny McCarthy. (Damn!) Seriously!?!?! I shot a laserbeam look over in her direction, partly because she took me away from JM and partly because of my prior rant. Seriously lady... (I look around the room) no one in this room knows what or who the WHO is? The only reason I do is because of the GC. I almost said something out loud, to try to cut this off at the pass. Well, maybe almost... I'm shy. Thankfully, the mop-doc was quick, and made the wonderful argument that vaccines save the world and that the WHO would love to vaccinate everyone, if they could afford it.
Annoying questioner #2: This lady was not even a parent. This was a freakin grandparent. She asked so many useless questions. "What about circumcisions? Cleaning? Caring? Transporting?" Jesus, lady shut it! Even made some comments. "In my day, they made us put babies on their stomachs!" Damn, woman, in your day bread cost a nickel, you walked uphill 5 miles to go to school, and formula was 10 cents. Pipe down. Thankfully, I think her daughter put a quick elbow to the gut to shut that one down.
This was dragging on forever. 7pm rolled around. I wanted to use the bathroom too, and then sneak out of the window. Finally, finally we were done. I bolted out of there quicker than Usain Bolt.... ok, maybe not that quick.
Whew! I survived. Actually, it was pretty good. The doc was really well spoken, young and very well read. Plus, his office is like 5 mins from the Green Machine.
Sounds like the BY's Pediatrician to me!!!
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