Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Read the Bottom Line and Open Wide

After the standard well-baby care visits to the doctor, I pretty much suck at managing a child's health care.

I attribute this to my high anxiety regarding paperwork, specifically insurance forms. I'm pretty sure that started the day I had to declare myself dependent on the state of New York for medical coverage and food benefits. Maybe someday I'll tell you more about that horror of horrors.

For now, I'll just admit that I'm not one of those moms who circles dates on her calendar six months in advance and works her schedule around her kid's physical or teeth cleaning.

I can barely plan six days in advance. Life happens, you know?

I myself don't go to the doctor unless 1) I'm growing a human being inside me, as I happen to be doing now, or 2) there is a profuse amount of blood or snot coming out of somewhere.

Between the months on Medicaid and my current employer's health plan more than a decade later, I never even had dental or vision coverage. I had worn the same pair of contacts for a scandalously long time. Let's just say, longer than any pair of shoes I own.

I managed to tend to my son Gabe's eyeballs only slightly better, dutifully getting him glasses but updating the prescription only when he couldn't see the blackboard at school. I took him to the dentist only when the office would periodically call and ask if they could finally throw out our records.

Don't I suck?

But I suck at that only, I think. I did fairly well in every other area of parenting. He always had clean clothes that fit him, he always had enough food in his belly, he always had a warm and safe bed in which to sleep. He went to libraries and zoos, parks and swimming pools -- hell, even Canada. He had an astounding vocabulary from an early age, including polite manner words. He had a self-confidence that comes from being absolutely and unconditionally loved.

He did have bad eyes and scuzzy teeth though. Until this week.

I finally got him to a new dentist, after getting him to a new eye doctor earlier in the year. (We've lived in this area about two years now.) Even more impressive, I've taken him to our family doctor several times in the past few months to freeze off some warty thingy on the bottom of his foot that has been there for goodness knows how long. All the while I've been dragging my own pregnant butt to the OBGYN and the lab for every possible thing.

I am way past my comfort zone, but there have been pleasant surprises. Gabe and I both got updated eyeballs, with new frames for him, at the eye doctor for, like, $30. Since I'm paying out the nose for this damned vision insurance through a paycheck withdrawal -- an amount that went up at the same time the salary went down in a round of union contract concessions -- I might as well use it.

I still experienced trepidation about going to the dentist office this week. I can't even remember the last time Gabe had a teeth cleaning; I think I may have been taller than him then. (That's a long, long time ago.) I even warned him that I might have to leave the office for a little while if the appointment was going to take a long time, not confident that I could sit in the waiting room without a sign magically appearing over my head with a big arrow, pointing out that: "Here sits the worst mother in the world. And look, she's even pregnant with another kid she'll probably neglect."

But the receptionist was kind and welcoming and didn't even ask me where our old dental records were. She filled in the insurance part on the new patient forms for me. I could have kissed her. A bonus: two big leather couches in addition to the standard waiting room chairs. I plopped my pregnant butt in one of those couches and watched episodes of animal rescue/cop shows on a big-screen TV. It felt much more like a home and much less like a courtroom.

Gabe emerged later with a goody bag of dental care products and the need for filling only two tiny cavities. The kind receptionist waved off my attempt to pay and said she would make sure to check all avenues with my insurance company first. I came home so pleased and energized that I even washed dishes and did laundry.

I may have gotten here even sooner if I hadn't needed months to recover from the absolute shame of getting dressed down by the school nurse at high school registration. She told me that Gabe really needed to get to a dentist and an eye doctor -- in front of EVERYONE. Every parent, every new student, every wayward 10th-grader in the wrong line. Right there in the hallway, looking first at the check marks on his paperwork (which had taken me three days of puffing into a brown paper bag to fill out in the first place) and then looking down on me.

First, I already freaking knew that he really needed to get to a dentist and an eye doctor. Second, the nasty letters sent home periodically did not help.

Would it have killed her to invite me into the little exam room? Or scribble down my phone number to call me later? Did she have to add peer pressure to an already horrible situation, exposing me to the pitying looks from other parents? Could she ever have asked, just once, what my problem was?

As people with odd anxieties are wont to do, I may be projecting my anger and misplacing blame. Sorry.

But it seems like a great big assumption that parenting comes naturally in all contexts, that all of us mommies are out there doing it with Stepford alacrity.

Not this sister. I suck at some things. But I did get a little better recently. We'll just have to see how well I keep up with it.

In the meantime, Gabe just needs to floss.

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