The Much Awaited Appointment

Today, we had Bregon's ADHD doctor's appointment. The office had so unceremoniously decided to reschedule our back to school appointment for the week after school started.

To make matters worse, they had decided that 3:00 p.m. would give me plenty of time to get him there. This meant that I needed to pick him up after school and bee-line it from Caddo Middle Magnet off of Line Avenue, all the way down to the Youree Drive Extension.

Ha Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha hah. Yes it really was funny after the fact. I managed to leave the house with the trio in tow and the car packed about 2 p.m. I should have had just enough time to run by my father's and check on our cat and get the mail.

His house is all of two minutes from mine, but today of all days, they had decided to film on location at the house around the corner. This meant that a normally narrow street was made even smaller and very maze-like to navigate with all of the trailers and eighteen wheeler's and such parked all over and down the street.

They were heralded by the two lone police cars that were strategically placed to suggest to drivers that they might want to alter their route. I actually made it through the maze and to Daddy's house somehow, but it did take quite a bit longer dodging obstacles and all.

I was still basically on time at this point. It was about 2:20 and the school bell would ring at 2:45. I even made it to the school with little or no fanfare. I innocently pulled into the pick-up line and claimed my spot in line.

The bell rang and that line didn't start to move at all. I should have known something was up when the second line next to us was steadily flowing and I was STILL in the same spot. 10 minutes later, that line finally started moving.

For a fleeting second, I had horrible thoughts of Bregon forgetting about the appointment and accidentally riding the bus home. Then, I saw him sitting there talking to his friends, patiently waiting for me to show up. As luck would have it, he had written himself a message in very large very bold print...on his for-arm so that he wouldn't forget to wait for me to pick him up.

It took me until 3:15 to get him to his appointment and make that drive. I was 15 minutes late and it was driving me crazy. As I drove, I had thoughts of the office staff refusing to see him because we were late or maybe they forgot to log this appointment into the appointment system like the past two times. What if they decided that we would have to reschedule, what would happen to Bregon in the meantime?

I was soo frazzled by the time I got him to the office, that I went ahead and sent him inside to let them know that we were here while I unloaded the babies. Some poor, well-meaning lady tried to tell me something from the car parked next to us, but I couldn't really hear what she was saying because of the traffic.

I think she was trying to say something nice about my trio, but I cannot be sure because I was much too focused on trying to get them out of the car and into the stroller in some fashion that would avoid baby conflict (just not going to happen no matter what but in my state of mind I had refused to believe it!)

Bregon met me in the hallway of the office to let me know that everything was okay and that they would see us immediately. As luck would have it, it was a different receptionist lady than we had ever seen before. She was very nice and apologized because she couldn't find some of our paperwork.

The doctor turned out to be a man that I had worked with last year at Bregon's school Renaissance Festival Committee. He is a very nice man, and I really hoped that my tiny three ringed circus didn't get too much in the way.

Poor Bregon seemed to spend more time trying to help me prevent the babies from crying and hair pulling and trying to calm them down than actually fielding his questions for his appointment. We both really did try and answer as much as we could and talk about as many concerns as could be remembered.

I felt really bad about having to have the babies with us for the appointment. They were so loud and silly (which is unusual for them, but they had just spent the past hour and fifteen minutes in the car waiting so they were fussy.)

I had meant to try and leave them with a baby-sitter for the appointment (which had originally been last Monday and would have been after the funeral) but the rescheduled day conflicted with a business trip and work day of my baby-sitters.

Lucky for us, the doctor didn't find us to outlandish. We managed to leave with our prescription for new medicine that promises to last much longer and not have the side effects that had kept Bregon from sleeping and more importantly eating and growing (he has gained about 5 lbs this summer alone while off of the medications!)

I also had a coupon for the medicine. It was in the form of this card that had to be activated by calling a toll-free number. Of course being from a major drug company, it came with many many MANY questions that I had to try and answer while listening to the babies scream from my backseat.

I finally got the thing activated, and bravely headed to target to try and get the medication filled. I was so very grateful to the pharmacy there. This visit was hassle-free and within 30 minutes I was on my way home with my very hungry very fussy trio and my very patient saint of a 12 year old.

All in all, it was a productive day. I was reminded that even if I leave the house very early, I will still most likely find a way to be late. I also really need to remember that there really isn't much I can do about it if the circumstances are beyond my control as they were today.

And finally, after five appointments and three visits to that office later, we finally have the medication that will hopefully help my child have a better school year. Tonight, he asked me for his dance money. He will need to buy his first tickets to his first school dance. He even has a date. I suppose he is off to a pretty good start!