A Conversation With My Doctor

After moving to the Ottawa  Valley with our first child, I became the patient  of a very feminist Doctor who was childless, although she did have tropical fish and a  parrot.
I was an enigma to her as she was to me. The waiting room was filled with well off, professional women needing gynaecological care and women in their late thirties or early forties pregnant with their first child. Then, I would walk through the door, at first pregnant with a toddler on my hip and by my last visit with three or four other children clustered around me. Even though I switched doctors to combine a family doctor/obstetrician, this woman went beyond the call of duty for all four births.

Enshrined on this doctor's desk and encased in glass waere birth control devices that glared at me every time I sat across from her.

After one visit, my obstetrician said, in a teasing tone, "Would you quit bringing your beautiful children to my office. Someone always wants a reversal (from tubal ligation) after you leave."

A similar comment about our kids came from a priest who said, "You and Michael are nice looking but you make absolutely beautiful babies!"

Pregnant with my fourth child, I came for a scheduled appointment even though labour had begun. I preferred to see her right away rather than wait for her at the hospital because I wanted to go home after visiting her office and put everything in order and arrange childcare.

Apparently babies are born faster, after a few pregnacies. I was not expecting my doctor's reaction, "This baby is coming soon. You don't have time to travel all the way home. Use the phone in the office, get a hold of your husband and get someone to meet him with the kids in the hospital parking lot and you go straight to admitting ahead of him."

I walked into the waiting room, called my brother-in-law and explained the situation, laughing at my self as I apologised to him. A contraction hit, I breathed through the pain and then gathered all the kids together and left her office for the hospital.

An hour later she bustled into the delivery room and announced, "Well you sure impressed my entire waiting room! Everyone thinks you are super woman."

Two hours later, standing with assistance and enduring long contractions that were turning my baby completely around,  I was anything but super woman. I wailed , "I thought you said this delivery was going to be fast!"

It didn't help that seven or eight student nurses, obstetrical residents and medical students stood in a half circle around me, watching a woman give birth without drugs or an epidural, to her fourth child. (I was not trying to be super mom, natural  birth was better for delivery because I could work with my body and therefore prevented tearing and stitches. I could sit cross-legged on the bed right after and feel wonderful and much lighter.)

My fifth birth was even faster.  On Christmas Eve we gave the kids baths in the afternoon, a tortiere was baking in the oven almost  ready for an early dinner and I had just laid out dresses, white tights, ribbons for the girls  and outfits for the boys to wear to church when the contractions started coming hard and fast. In fact I barely could get my boots on.  Michael drove very quickly to the hospital. When I stepped into admitting, the lights were dim, Christmas lights were shining on the tree and strung along the walls and two relaxed nurses were leaning against the counter.

 "So ", one of the nurses calmly asked, "Is this your first?"
" No", I gasped, "My fifth."
"Your Fifth?", her head jerked up and her eyes popped open. "Sandra, get the elevator right now and then grab a wheelchair. I'll phone obstetrics so they can get ready for her!!!"
Michael followed the parade carrying David who refused to stay with our baffled neighbour; Dad assumed he had time to take him back home.
 The obstetrical  nurse told him, You aren't going anywhere if you want to see this baby's birth. Give him to the desk clerk and tell her to give him crackers."  By the way, David thoroughly enjoyed his adoring fans out at the nurses' station. My dress was literally yanked over my head, my tights whipped off, the doctor ran in to the delivery room and Emily was born 45 minutes later.
 And my slightly baffled doctor STILL showed up within 20 minutes on Christmas Eve!!

Blogging About Health Issues: ME??

my children are still alive and in good health!

I am a relatively green, 57 year old blogger who has barely one toe in the  21st century and is basically a computer illiterate. Unwittingly, I have  just agreed to blog for 30 days in a row on health issues. As I sit down to type my first post, reality suddenly clashes with my impulsiveness. My mind is blank, I hold my breath but I have decided to jump into the unknown with a grin and a sense of challenge.

On the other hand, I have raised nine children and managed to keep them all alive on a lively hobby farm. It is a miracle. Do you have any idea what can happen on a hobby farm swarming with nine kids who generously share germs with each other?

 I wish that I had access to the incredible mounds of health information on the Internet that I am just discovering this year. Many nights in the wee hours before dawn, I frantically flipped through out of date childcare books, encyclopedias, condensed family books on symptoms, treatment and diseases, hoping to find relief for a whimpering sick child. Most of the time it was to no avail and I was forced to wait till the morning to speak with my doctor's nurse or someone in the hospital's emergency room who was not allowed to give me any real advice.



melanie jean juneau

In the thirty odd years since the birth of my first baby, suddenly it is easy to access libraries, scientific studies, to question doctors, nurses or even other mothers and to get answers in seconds. The internet has changed society even more than the arrival of the Guetinburg Printing Press at the end of the middle ages. Suddenly "commoners" have access to health information that was only avaiable to researchers or health professionals only a decade ago.

On the positive side health consumers are more knowledgable, ask better questions and feel empowered to ask for a second opinion rather than take their doctor's opinion as a pronouncement from God.

However, this new found freedom has caused problems as others jump to conclusions, argue with their health care provider or refuse his advice because they have read some obsure article written by a self-proclaimed health guru. Not all advice is wise or ased on fact. Students have even sabatoged Wickepedia, presenting fiction as fact, just for the fun of confusing the ordinary reader.So it is with excitment tempered with common sense that I start this journey and begin to write a Health Blog on my family site as well as posting on the official Health site of Facebook. I hope you enjoy these posts as much as I will.I will gear most of them to women, children and of course families.

 A friend , Elaine Plummer, a registered nurse who writes on health issues on BlogHer has agreed to save my ignorant middle aged brain  and keep me up to date..  ElaineR.N., as she calls herself, has kindly agreed to let me quote her massive collection of articles as well as  interview her. Thank-you Elaine
http://www.blogher.com/member/elainern 

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