You try to avoid them if possible, but taking your kids to the doctor or emergency room is sometimes inevitable or, frankly, mandatory. But the best you can hope for is a smooth appointment and a short and uneventful stay. Is that always the case? We wish!
What happens when your child is quarantined upon arrival at the medical clinic or finds himself alongside several of his barfing classmates in the ER lobby? Well, you have yourself a great story, that's what.
Several moms shared with us their most horrifying doctor's office or emergency room stories, and you won't believe the insanity they've endured. Oh, parenthood. It's not always pretty, that's for sure. Just take a look for yourself:
What is your craziest emergency room or doctor's office story?
Image ©iStock.com/RichLegg
Swine Flu ... Maybe?
"It was during the swine flu frenzy of 2009, and a child at my kids' after-school care program came down with it. So, of course, when my boys ended up coughing and sick, I was sure they had it too. I took them to a 24-hour clinic and explained their symptoms. Within minutes, medical staff swooped out and strapped both of them in face masks. And let's just say, that wait — alongside my coughing, masked children while paranoid patients made horrified facial expressions and squeezed into the farthest corner of the lobby from us — was the longest hour of my life. But hey, they didn't have it!"
THAT Mom & Kid
"My little one had a hellacious stomach bug, and it was so bad I had to bring him to see the doctor for meds to make him stop puking. So I was that mom, with that kid, in the waiting room — we basically sat there with him retching into a series of plastic trash bags over and over and over again, sobbing quietly in between. I tried to avoid eye contact with everyone else in the waiting room. Eventually we finally saw the doctor (he, of course, puked in the exam room, too), and after a couple of doses of a prescription anti-emetic, he was good as new, thankfully!"
Mommy ...
"Last winter I took my son, 6, to the ER for croup, and the ER doc was so condescending and kept calling me 'Mommy,' which was so bizarre, but it was 1 a.m. and I was desperate for the medication for my child, so I didn't tell him off. "
Family Affair
"I was eight months pregnant with my second, and my then-husband had a severe allergic reaction to something he ate. We had to get our 4-year-old out of bed, and I drove us all to the ER, waddled in, and everyone kept trying to send us to L&D. Meanwhile, my husband was wheezing and swelling — I guess they just thought he was nervous for the birth? We were all fine, and I gave birth about a month later."
And, Breathe!
"I took my daughter in for a bad asthma attack and told them she was having trouble breathing and to let my doctor know. They have a sign that reads: 'If your child is having trouble breathing, let us know.'
"I sat there for half an hour and no one took care of us. I kept asking and they basically ignored me, and my poor child was running out of air. I finally saw my doctor's nurse and she saw me and asked me what was going on. I told her, and she brought us back right away and got my doctor. They both yelled at the morons in the front and I filed a formal complaint."
Related, Right?
"I took my daughter in for a sick visit, and we sat in the waiting room with a trash can as she vomited every two minutes or so. She was running a fever, vomiting, and dehydrated. As we are sitting there vomiting into a trash can, the doctor was on the phone trying to track down another patient who was not up to date on their shots. She seriously had us waiting (the only patients in the office) for an hour and a half while she played phone police.
"Finally when she got frustrated with not getting in contact with the mother after several attempts, she came out to me FUMING. In a berating tone, she demanded that I call so and so's parents so she could speak to them or else she would have doctors at their doorsteps by day's end. I was shocked and confused. I told her I had no clue who this person was … just because this child shared my child's common last name, that doesn't make them family."
Projectile Train
"During the Great Flu Outbreak of 2012 (as we like to call it in my family), I took my then 7-year-old son to the emergency room because he was throwing up, on and off, for several hours. We arrive there only to find that four (seriously, four) of his classmates are already there with the exact same conditions. Things seemed to calm down for about 15 minutes when, all of a sudden, my son just starts vomiting all over again. Seconds later, the boy to his right starts vomiting too, and then the girl next to him, and so on. It's like we started our own wave around the room. I was utterly horrified."
Unfriendly Visitor
"I saw a cockroach crawl along the receptionist's desk at my daughter's pediatrician. Got up, left, and never came back. Nope. Nope. Nope."
Fat Shaming
"My 5-year-old daughter's pediatrician seemed like a perfectly great guy. He was always attentive, polite, respectful, and would always communicate well with me and my husband. Then, when we took her for a regular check-up before the start of the school year, and he weighed my daughter, he completely fat shamed her. And directly to her face. Told her how she's completely overweight (she's maybe 15 to 20 pounds heavier than most kids her age and height, but not over-the-top obese) and how I need to keep a better eye on her. She is 5 YEARS OLD. Clearly, I did not appreciate that and left soon after."
Who Are You?
"Our pediatrician is a bit … older, but he's always been great. Until about a year ago when he seemed to have started losing it. Once, he called my daughters by the complete wrong names, but we just chalked that up to a simple mistake. But when he accidentally mistook my 6-year-old daughter for a 6-month-old baby and wanted to give her the DTaP vaccine, that was it."
