Time for a New Pediatrician

I should have listened to my gut.

Since the Doodle will be starting Preschool sometime this week and because of his severe seizure disorder the school is REQUIRING a prescription for Diastat, which is used in emergencies for seizures atonic (grand mal) seizures that go longer than 5 minutes while they are waiting for 911 to respond.

We already have an emergency Diastat kit on hand, at home.

I called our Pediatrician's office on Thursday to have them call in a prescription for this emergency Diastat Kit to be kept at the school for the Doodle...just in case. The prescription was denied.

What? This has to be some kind of mistake, right?

The Nurse at the Pediatrician's office left me a voicemail message Friday night that the Dr. didn't think it was necessary for the Doodle to have this on hand in case of an emergency.

Hmmmm.

I called the Dr.'s office back this morning, scratching my head in disbelief that I was even having to make this stupid phone call. I asked to speak with the Dr. or at least leave a message for him to call me back. Instead, I got transferred to the same nurse who had called before. I never really anticipated that I would actually get to speak with the Doctor; it's almost unheard of.

So I told the nurse that I could not believe that the Dr. was DENYING us an emergency seizure kit which was part of the seizure protocol from the school. She restated that the Dr. didn't think it was necessary for the type of seizures that the Doodle was having.

WTF?

I reminded her that besides the head-drops, the Doodle also has grand mal seizures...multiple and in clusters and even though we haven't needed to use our emergency Diastat kit at home, YET, that they had to use it in the Hospital last month when we were admitted for his 12+ grand mals in 28 hours.

"Oh", she said.

I asked if she or the Doctor happened to check the Doodle's chart or medical history? And then I told her it might make sense for someone to brush up on the recent medical history and changes in the Doodle's epilepsy before they go making rash decisions to deny a perfectly reasonable request from the school. I also let her know that the Doctor was on the pediatric floor last month when we were admitted for the multiple grand mal seizures because I saw him---yet he never bothered to come into our room or check on the Doodle while he was there. No hi, kiss my ass or anything.

We were completely ignored by this Pediatrician.

This is the same Doctor whom we never actually get to see when we make appointments even when I specifically request to see him; we usually get the Nurse Practitioner.

This is the same Doctor that thinks nothing of keeping you waiting in the waiting room for 45 minutes with an autistic child but if you are 10 minutes late for an appointment, refuses to see you and then charges you as if it was a NO SHOW.

This is the same Doctor who told me I was "crazy" for bringing the Doodle into his office at 13 months to see if he thought he might be Autistic and then received the report from another Doctor that YES, THE DOODLE IS AUTISTIC. What's that Doctor? I can't hear you with your foot stuck in your mouth...

This is the same Doctor who does not believe in anything biomedical to treat Autism symptoms--things like food allergies, toxins, metals, candida, vitamin deficiencies, or spreading out the vaccinations.

I will call our Neurologist at UCSF for the prescription for the emergency kit to be kept at the school; which I should have done in the first place.

Time for a new Pediatrician.