Pediatric Doctors, Surgery, and Stool

I am in the middle of attempting to get my 2yr old - now nicknamed the Menace - scheduled and in for a surgery he has to have done. Let me tell you, it has not been easy.

You'd think that the big issue would be collecting the stool and doing the blood exam. Surprisingly this was not an issue. First off, the Menace has taken to crapping on the floor. While absolutely vomit inducing and disgusting, much easier to get stool from hardwood floors than inside a toilet. Call me a cup half full kind of girl.

The blood test was also fairly easy, although traumatizing. Don't worry, he'll get over it.  I just took his little slip of paper from the doctor (with the warm cup of stool) to a nearby lab where everything was dropped off and drawn respectively. Great thing about Zona Sul is that there's as many laboratories as bread shops, at least in my neighborhood.

The hard part came in the form of doctor and doctor secretary cooperation. If you have tried to get an appointment with a specialist in Rio de Janeiro, you know what I am talking about. It goes to super pain in your ass status when they are in pediatrics as they are doubly special, or so they all believe.

I have to, and I say have because I have yet to manage it, get a surgical risk evaluation from a pediatric cardiologist. I thought this would be easy peasy since the Menace already has a pediatric cardiologist and had just seen him 95 days earlier. At that appointment, I explained that I was in the process of meeting with the pediatric surgeon and knew I would need him to update the form as no anesthesiologist will accept one that is over 90 days old. My appointment with the pediatric surgeon was over 6 weeks later as he is one of the best and is as hard to get into as a new NYC restaurant.

So being wide eyed and innocent, I jumped on the blood/stool tests and thought I'd just ring that cardiologist and be all set. Nope. He's never in. The man must be saving the pediatric universe because I sure as hell can't get a hold of him. His secretary has been stone-walling me for a month now and I finally gave in. I made a new freaking appointment. After finding a babysitter for Chatterbox, the Menace and I will be metro-ing over to Ipanema to wait for 45 freaking minutes just to hear the doctor say that I should have called and that he'll print something up. So be it.

That brings me to calling the pediatric surgeon's secretary. Figuring that I have the appointment with the cardiologist, I can reasonably say (dangerous none-the-less) that I will have all results the day following said appointment. I decided to count my chickens before they hatched and schedule with the surgeon before that becomes next to impossible.

The secretary did not agree with this plan. She informed me that the Prince of all doctors (which he really is) was booked through the month and they will not even open his September calendar until next week. I had to call back.

That was enough! I said no. We are not new patients. We are in the process of scheduling surgery and my child needs to be seen! I have test results.

Who knew 'test results' were the magic words? Of course she quizzed me first. Which kinds of tests? What kind of stool exam? By the way, I was very tempted to respond 'The kind that looks at poop from a child's ass' but I behaved myself.

Low and behold, I have an appointment for the Monday following the Cardiologist's appointment! Score 1 for this mother! Now I'm just waiting for the surgeon to say that I jumped the gun on the blood and stool and must do those over. Fair enough. I think by then I should have the Menace trained enough to go straight into the cup. That would win over both the hardwood floors and the toilet!