Well, one kid is nearly recovered, the second went to the doctor yesterday--and has another appointment for this afternoon--and the third is struggling bravely through the early/middle stages. And my wife seems to be going back down for another round.
Me? So far I've managed to avoid it, knock on...uhm...particle board.
This whole experience has taught me just how much I despise our current insurance. Our old insurance had a fairly low co-pay on doctor's visits, whereas on our current program we pay everything out of pocket until we hit the deductible, wherein the insurance starts kicking in. Knowing that we'll have to pay the whole thing really makes us agaonize every time a kid gets sick. Should we go see a doctor or not?
As I mentioned above, our oldest went to the doctor yesterday, complaining of an ear ache. Sure enough, she has an ear infection. Today she's complaining of an ache in her throat. I guess she's had this before, and it turned out to be a throat infection. If this really is the same thing, then the antibiotics they prescribed for the ear infection should also help with this. But what if it's not?
If we take her in today and they say that she'll be fine when the antibiotics have had enough time to take effect I'll be grumbling. But the alternative is taking the chance that it IS something else and it WON'T get better on its own. Then we still pay for a doctor, and suffer the guilt that we could have done something sooner and spared her the suffering.
We're young parents, and eventually we'll gain enough experience to know how to decide these sorts of things more easily. But I can't help but wish the lessons would come cheaper. Like they used to.
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Don't feel bad. We've been through the same thing. We took a $100 Saturday night trip to the emergency room for a stomach bug that wouldn't quit. It was very frustrating to pay all that money (and wait all that time) just to be told "we've seen a lot of this lately. Just keep doing what you've been doing". On the other hand, the poor kid had been throwing up off and on for a week, and we never could have lived with ourselves if there had been something really wrong. It's a difficult choice to have to make, but I guess it's better to err on the side of caution, although it doesn't do much for your financial well-being.
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