of things to come

Yesterday was just so stressful and emotionally fraught. (is that even how you spell fraught?) Anyway. Simon had been scheduled to have his ENT appointment. As I wrote before, it got cancelled at the last minute last week. Then this week the receptionist called me and asked if I could reschedule to 1.15pm Friday, instead of 4.15pm. I would have loved to have done that, but it was simply not possible, so she said no problem, see you at 4.15. Then yesterday, the day of the appointment I went to my regular volunteer work that I do with Barnados Children's Charity. I am visiting a lovely woman who has baby twin boys and I just basically give her support for a few hours once a week. She has been having a hard time lately with their sleeping and yesterday became quite emotional about it all, which I could totally relate to. So I spent a bit longer with her than normal, and then rushed to do my groceries before getting the children from school. So I was at the checkout at Coles when i get a text message (by now it's 2.15pm) It is the ENT surgery, asking can I come at 3pm? I called them straight back and said I could come earlier, but i wouldn't be there until about 10 past 3, would that be OK? Fine, the receptionist said, see you then. Well then I had to basically throw all the groceries into the car, drive home, throw the groceries through the front door, shove the cold stuff in the fridge and race to get Ruby from preschool, drive to school, pull the boys out of assembly early, get their bags, corral them into the car and drive to the doctor's, which was only 5 minutes away. I arrived at 3.15pm, went in and signed all the forms etc. Then we took a seat and waited.... and waited..... and waited.... and waited. At least 4 people went in before us. At 4pm I went back to the receptionist, who was the most incredibly rude and dismissive person I have ever met and inquired why we had been asked to come at 3pm if we weren't going to end up being seen until after 4, the time of our original appointment? She barely took her eyes off the computer screen and said "Oh, you're next." So we got in at 4.15pm. (INSERT EXTREMELY STRONG EXPLETIVE HERE!) Originally I had asked brett to get home a bit early so I wouldn't have to take the other two the the appointment, so there I was with all three of them, which wasn't particularly conducive to being able to listen to the doctor properly.

As it turned out, the doctor himself seems very competent and pleasant. He's in his late 30's I'd say, and was very good with Simon. And Simon was outstanding in his bravery and cooperation. He had to have some spray up his nose, which tasted yucky (I think it was a local anasthetic) and then the doctor looked into his nose with the fibre optic camera on the end of a long tube. I held Simon on my lap, as he was really nervous, but he was so good, and didn't move a muscle, though I could feel his heart pounding through his skinny chest. Ruby and Declan were fascinated and kept crowding round to see the computer screen where you could see the inside of Simon's nose. Anyway, the polyp was obvious to Blind Freddy, and on Monday Simon needs a CT scan to detrmine where the hell it's coming from, because the doctor is quite concerned about it. In his words, "we don't like to see this kind of polyp in children." Fantastic! It is definate that Simon will have to have surgery to remove it, once the results of the CT are back. I have a little nugget of fear sitting in the middle of my gut, which I refuse to give any time to until I have to.

So that little excursion cost $375, another $80 on monday for the CT. Between Simon and dog the credit card is getting a good work out!