I have anxiety about taking my kids to the doctor. I’m not talking well child visits. I’m talking about the visits for when they are actually sick. It sounds crazy, right? I mean, what is the doctor for other than making your children better when they’re sick?

Yeah. I get that. But you see, there is a fine line between being a responsible parent and being off-your-rocker crazy. For example, when HJ got her first cold, I, like most first-time parents, marched her right in to the doctor hoping they would prescribe us a magic elixir that would immediately make her well.

Ha. I got smile and a “Yep. She’s got a cold. Give her some Tylenol and she’ll be fine.”

I didn’t need to pay $100 to have someone tell me the obvious. And I really didn’t want to be THAT parent. Everyone knows the one. He or she takes the kid in for every hiccup. They self-diagnose their child and are just SURE Suzie is allergic to everything in the history of ever.

NO. I was not going to be that one. So the next time she got a cold, I waited. And waited. When I finally took her in, it turned out that she’d had a double ear infection for almost a week. Mom of the year, right here. I was sure they’d call Family Protective Services on me for being so neglectful. Obviously, I can be quite dramatic in my head.

In the course of the next two years, I got a little better about knowing when things required a doc’s eye and when to wait it out. Still though, every trip to the office would fill me with anxious energy at the possibility that it was either something catastrophic or non-existent.

However, last week B-maggedon struck our house (i.e. B’s first major illness.) If you remember correctly, B does NOT handle discomfort well. Therefore, my internal struggle began:

She just has a cold. Everyone gets colds. She’s just crabby because she feels bad. It’ll get better. Okay, it’s not getting better. It’s been a week. What if she has a sinus infection? What if she has an ear infection? What if she got that super bug thing? What if they tell me she’s fine and she’s crabby because she’s just kind of a jerk?

I bit the bullet and took her in. After pulling in to the doctor’s office parking lot, leaving to return home because HJ forgot to wear shoes there, and coming back to finally go in to our visit, we confirmed that yes, B had a yucky cold, but also a double ear infection.

Whew. So she’s not just in a jerkish phase. She’s legitimately sick AND I have validation that I’m not crazy. I feel like I should not consider that these things make a successful doctor’s visit, but oddly I kind of do.

I hope you all are having a much healthier start to the new year at your house.

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