Emergency! Emergency!
Congratulate me. I got my first middle-of-the-day phone call from my kid's school this morning.

The story is somewhat confusing (as told by a five year old), but somehow he managed to fall down face first onto one of the steps leading up to a slide on the playground. He came out of it with a couple of nice tooth-shaped gashes in his lower lip and some really disgusting looking bruises on his upper gums, right above his two front teeth.

I knew something was up right away. Usually when they start the phone conversation "Everything is fine..." it never is.

So anyway, I throw Sprog 2 and Sprog 3 into the macho minivan and make the 15 minute trek down there. They have no nurse at this school, so it's up to me to determine whether or not to take him out of school for further care. I rely on my extensiver medical training and pull him from their care lest something really tragic should befall him.

Right across the street there is the ironically named "Urgent Care" clinic where in these days of managed care you're supposed to go instead of the ER. I took one step inside and another step in the opposite direction. I could tell by the crowd it was at least two hours.

So I made the 20 minute drive to the other "Urgent Care" over by our old house further east into Riverside. Me and the three kids all under six years old, one of them with holes in his face and the other two dangerously approaching lunch/nap time. I ask how long. "Thirty or forty minutes, but I don't think it should be longer than that."

An hour and a half later me and the three crying kids are storming out, unseen by anyone with any medical training. Not only were they not urgent, but there was also no care forthcoming. In other circumstances, oh how I would have laughed.

The only thing I managed to accomplish in that time was to explain to the injured party what stitches were. Cue emotional collapse and exeunt.

Now Mrs. Pops is all flustered and is making the long trip home from Newport Beach. We have an appointment for the dentist at 4 pm and then we're going to try "Urgent Care" again. We have to. His regular pediatrician "doesn't do lacerations", the lazy fucker. I swear to God you need a tumor large enough to not only speak, but make its own appointments before they'll grant you access to their precious, precious perfunctory care.

I would very much like to beat somebody, but only my kids are home right now and I don't need to cause any more treatment-requiring damage at this point, so I guess I'll do the healthy thing and swallow my rage. But I really wanna kick something really bad.

Oh! The dog just woke up. I gotta go.


Pops

- posted by Pops @ 2:06 PM