Healthcare: Now versus Then
2009
Problem: Girl wakes up in the middle of the night screaming that her stomach hurts.
Solution: I call the nurse at the pediatrician’s office to ask what kind of medicine to give her. I’m pretty sure she needs a laxative, but I don’t know which one is safe for a 5-year-old. The nurse says, “With abdominal pain, you need to take her to the emergency room,” so I do, choosing the closet one with the smallest chance of a gunshot wound victim sitting next to my kids.
At the ER, I tell the nurse on duty, “I think she needs a laxative,” but the nurse says they need to check for appendicitis or anything else that may need surgery. She orders a blood test and urinalysis. After two hours (it’s now 2:30 a.m.), the doctor says Girl is fine and can go home. I say, “But she’s in pain. Can you give her anything?” So they do: a little shot of morphine.
The next day, I take Girl to our regular pediatrician. I say, “I think she needs a laxative.” The pediatrician says, “Yes, but we need to check for bacteria and parasites,” so she orders another blood test, another urinalysis, a stool sample (which I get to collect), an upper GI and an ultrasound.
Before Girl and I can complete all these tests, the results of the x-ray confirm what I have known all along: Girl needs a laxative. The pediatrician’s nurse calls with the answer I had been asking for: “Miralax.”
1969
Problem: I wake up screaming in the middle of the night that my stomach hurts.
Solution: Castoria. And if that didn’t work, enema.
Post script: On the one hand, I feel personally responsible for the current high cost of healthcare in the United States. On the other hand, the 1969 ultimate remedy seemed like one step better than leeches.
Post script 2: The pediatrician’s nurse just called again. Another test came back. Girl has giardiasis, an infection caused by drinking bad water. Where she got the bad water, I don’t know. I hope it wasn’t out of our faucets. I have to admit that this problem probably would not have happened to me in 1969: we had awesome well water. God knows where our city water is coming from now. And no more Miralax — Girl needs stiff antibiotics now.
Post script 3: Thanks, Doc, for not jumping to my conclusions.
Posted: October 20th, 2009 under Girl.
Comment from Lou
Time October 21, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Doctoring is so different these days. Back in the ’30s I had stomach pain on and off for 2 years before finally having an appendectomy when pain became persistent. It was close to rupturing. But I never had any tests and the Doctor came to the house.