Saturday, June 6, 2009

There's a buzz going around the blogs and message boards about a mother who was making her daughter very sick. Her daughter is a preemie (I think she's 2 or 3) with some medical problems (feeding tube, things like that) This term was used, and although I knew what it was, I wanted to look further into this "condition".

One thing that keeps popping up is the symptoms. And one thing in the symptoms list grabs my attention every time and that is that the caregiver usually has a very good knowledge of medical terminology and of tests and diseases. And for this I have to say (just to get it off my chest):

I am a mother of a preemie child who was in the hospital for 93 days. I know my medical terminology. I looked up everything that was ever talked about while he was in the hospital. I looked at his medical records, I demanded to know EVERY little detail about what was going on with my child. If I didn't understand it, I read whatever I could get my hands on to understand it. I poured over books and the Internet. I sat up countless nights reading what I could, stuffing my brain so full of information I often had headaches from trying to learn so much. I know medications, what they are used for and why. I know the dosage for babies and toddlers and kids in general. I know more than I want to know sometimes.

I know that it's only ONE symptom of this condition, but it's like a slap in the face to know just because I know my way around a doctor's office and terminology, that professionals are left to wonder if I have this condition.

Let me put it this way: If I hadn't have learned all that I could have while S was in the hospital, how in the world could I have been and advocate for his care? How could I have called myself a mother if I just let them do "whatever" to him without knowing about the "whatevers" they were doing to him. I was not keen to sit back and watch someone take care of MY child without me being actively involved in his care.

So the next time my kids are sick, and I take them to the doctors, I'm going to wonder if the doctor thinks I have Munchausen syndrome by proxy when he looks at me and writes something down on his little paper. Yes, I'm being a tad sarcastic there, but still. It gets on my nerves when people start labeling every little thing.

I'm praying for that little girl. I hope she gets better soon and can recover from this nightmare that she should not have had to endure at the hands of her mother.


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