It all started last Thursday. My son started complaining that his chest was hurting. He has asthma so I thought he might be coming down with something and it was hurting his lungs. On Friday morning I brought him into see his pediatrician. Since he had no other symptoms except for chest pain, which was also sensitive to the touch the Dr diagnosed him with costochondritis. We were sent home being told to give motrin as necessary for the pain. When we were leaving to drive my husband to work my son started grabbing his chest and crying out in pain. Let me tell you seeing your child like that is not fun, it was very scary and all I could think about was that something might be wrong with his heart. We immediately turned around and went over to the local ER. Four hours and an xray later we were sent home with the same diagnosis and same treatment plans.
Fast forward to yesterday. He was running a temp of about 102. Not a huge deal. I try to let my childrens fevers run its course and not give meds unless it is over 102. I took him back to see his pediatrician since the fever was a new symptom now. My son sat around all day and you could just tell looking at him that he wasn't feeling right. I took his temperature around 3:30 and it was 104.6. Holy crap, you could imagine my fear. I was freaking out. I ran and gave him some Motrin and then picked him up and put him in a luke warm bath. While he was in the bath I called Kaiser and left a message asking specifically for our pediatrician to call back. Of course we got a call back from a nurse who screens his messages. I told her what had happened and I took his temperature again and told her that it had lowered to 103.6. She then told me that that is not a high fever for a child his age and that I could bring him into urgent care if I wanted to. I told her no I wanted to speak to his pediatrician. She then hmm'd and haw'd and said well it's the end of the day but I'll give him the message. I never received a phone call from his Dr. At 7:30 my son started to complain his heart was feeling weird. Again insert panic. So I grabbed him and off we went to pediatric urgent care.
Three hours, a blood test and another chest x-ray later my son was diagnosed with pneumonia. PNEUMONIA. Here is where I get pissed. This lady I spoke with tried to tell me that my son's fever wasn't a big deal. Oh really. I'm sorry you don't find it a little odd that his temperature spikes to almost 105. What happens if I would have been naive enough to actually trust you, someone who is not a Dr, someone who is not allowed to give medical advice.
I have had issues with this particular person at Kaiser before. In fact I have spoken to my sons Dr about her and apparently he along with the other nurses in his office all have issues with her, for example her not delivering a message from the Dr to me a few weeks ago about not needing to bring my son in since he was seeing a lot of patients with a stomach virus and since he had already seen him earlier that week and knew what was going on with him it wasn't necessary to bring him back and risk all three of my children getting sick. Of course I didn't find this out until I was sitting in his office with him.
So I guess that point of this post is/was for me to vent because I am very frustrated at being treated like just an ignorant person. I may not be a Dr or a nurse but I know when something is not right with my child. The other point to my post is to not let yourself be pushed around when it comes to your child's health. You are the child's mother and father and NO ONE but you knows your child better. If you know deep down something is off let your voice be heard!
Vent done, off to go cuddle with my little man.
