Yep, I am sick! The fever has come back and I am coughing up all kinds of stuff. But it was my follow up appointment for my jaw surgery so Grandma and I met up with Mommy at Primary Children's. Dr Morales was only running about 30 minutes late this time so we were off to a pretty good start. When he came in he took a quick look at the pin sites and thought they looked good. He didn't seem concerned about the three day fever with no other symptoms because he said if I had an infection at the surgery sites we would know. Now, I think anyone would say Dr Morales is a great surgeon. But I would be surprised if many people would say he is very personable. Mommy is a firm believer that any doctor's working with pediatric patients should have great bedside manners but she hasn't been so lucky in the ENT/plastic surgery department so far. As Dr Morales started to walk out the door Mommy called him back to ask about the hardware. At my last appointment he had said he was going to remove the hardware that was on the pins and replace it with less bulky hardware for the remaining month until the removal surgery. When Mommy asked him about it he asked, "Did I say we were going to do that?" Mommy said yes, that was what was discussed at the last appointment. Rather nonchalantly he responded, "That's too bad since I didn't bring the tool". Mommy did her best not to retort back "well I sure as hell didn't bring the tool" and decided to let it go. We would leave the bulkier hardware on until the end since it wouldn't cause any problems. Grandma wanted Mommy to ask about the size of the airway so when Mommy did he said he couldn't really see that on the xray - that would be the purpose of the sleep study later. Mommy knew from my previous surgeon that it wouldn't be a good idea to remove the trach until after the palate surgery was complete since it would further restrict the airway. So Momy verified with him that the plan would not be to complete a sleep study until after the palate surgery. Dr Morales responded, "You're not anxious to get the trach out are you?" That was pretty much the last straw for Mommy. She let him know that she wouldn't push to get a trach out before all the necessary surgeries were completed but in the back of her mind she was wondering why she was defending herself. After all, why shouldn't we be anxious to get the trach out? Who wouldn't want to get it out as soon as it was possible to do so? Mommy is still not sure if that was his way of trying to joke around but regardless of how he intended it to come across she was left wondering what is up with these doctors? She had a moment of deja vu when she was at an appointment with the head of pediatric ENT at UC Davis and his comment was "I'm sure you want to get the trach out so she can go swimming." Who are these people? Do they need to be trached for 24 hours so they have some idea what life with a trach is really like and stop with the insensitive comments? Mommy is pretty tolerant of the general public when it comes to comments and questions about the trach but when it comes to doctors who specialize as ENT's or craniofacial surgeons she is still dumbfounded at these types of comments.
Peyton Nicole Smith
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