next on the agenda

Daniel had a tough night last night, and spent the bulk of it wiggling and scrambling around the bed and when he wasn't crawling all over me, but because he wasn't whining, I thought he was just being a pain in the arse. Ask me now then, how guilty do I feel now for not being more sympathetic? Oy. He slept in til after 10.30 this morning though, to make up for being awake all night, and when he woke up, he was miserable. A regular Mr Whineypants to the point that, if I put him down for a second, he'd start with the whimpering as he lay face down on his playmat, without even trying to move. His cold has all but gone, he wasn't pulling on his ears, he wasn't drooling or frantically shoving his fingers into his mouth, so I had no idea what was wrong.

Daniel already has an appointment with our regular doctor, but as it's not til on Thursday, I called the surgery to see who was available today. I figured nothing was really wrong as he didn't have a fever or anything, but also figured I'd rather hear that as a professional diagnosis. Dr C had a time available, so off we went this afternoon.

As expected, there's nothing really wrong with the boy. There's some residual congestion in his ears, and he's teething. Or something. Point being, he's not sick, he's just miserable. In any case, Daniel had perked up somewhat by this point, what with Dr C being a new person and all, and Daniel LOVES new people, so was merrily chewing away on my car keys oblivious to what came next.

What came next was that this doof, who isn't even our regular doctor, looked into Daniel's notes and asked about his six month vaccinations, which he hasn't had, and then he pissed me off.

Now, I may be hippy-eqsue, but that's not enough reason to deny my son what we're told are potentially lifesaving substances. I've read what I can and have sought several opinions, from the medical fraternity as well as the 'crackpots' (as this dickweed refered to them), so my decision to vaccinate (or not) has been well thought out, and because I'm a reasonable human being who understands that life comes in shades of grey, it's also often been second guessed. I'm second guessing it right now actually, not because of what this dogmatic fuck had to say, but because I always consider and reconsider decisions I've made about my son's future because nothing is cast in stone, and life and circumstances are always constantly evolving anyway.

It's not an easy decision to make. It'd be easier to just go ahead with all the jabs because that's what you do when you have a child, just as it would be easier to refuse them all because that's what dirty hippies do when they have kids. It's hard to know which is the right choice, because you decide what to do because you want to prevent an event, either the disease itself or the consequence of vaccinating against it. It's only if your child contracts the disease or suffers the consequence that you're given reason to think "oops". You're as unlikely to waste energy congratulating yourself that your kid dodged Hep B as you are to pat themselves on the back for having an child who isn't autistic. Point being, you'll only ever decide you made the wrong choice if fate shits on you and your child suffers for you not taking the other choice. Even then though, you may still get the disease or suffer the event despite the decsion you made, because sometimes life just sucks.

Aaaand, bla bla bla.

So anyway, this dickhead, who doesn't know me at all, lectured me for a while about how Daniel would suffer catestrophic brain damage from the measles I'm allowing him to contract. I should ahve just walked out on him, then I may have dodged the bit where he turned to conversation toward a patient of his who has just lost twin baby girls to some congenital kidney disease. The poor thing lost another child to the same thing a few years back, which is cruel as she only has a twenty five percent chance of passing on this genetic defect, and so far, she's gone one for one with all her, now deceased, babies. I, of course, fogged up, what with my empathy gland being on high alert every since I beame a mother myself, and when I was sufficently tearful, the doctor looked me in the eye and said "She would have vaccinated her children...*da dum*.... if any of them had lived...".

Uh, okay.

I don't even get why he said that. Did he mean she loved her kids more than I love mine, and that's why she'd vaccinate them? Or that, unlike me, she'd be so grateful to be a mother that she'd do anything to protect them? Or was he just being a wad? What? I feel guilty even without his input, which is why his two cents chaffed my hide, but regardless, was he largely inappropriate? I think so, but I'm kind of sensiotive already about conversations about why I don't love my child enough.

Now I accept that it is written in the doctor's handbook that thou shalt counsel parents to vaccinate, because to each his own and etc, but I honestly thought the bit about thou shalt also be a control freak about it was one of those unwritten things. Who knew?