Toothaches :(

I was planning to blog for Christmas today but my plans changed. Malia has been having major toothaches. We've done everything the dentist suggested, but nothing seems to work. We took Malia to the minor emergency this afternoon, ended up seeing a doctor that I was not impressed with and went home with a confused little girl. Malia thought the doctor would "fix" her owie and couldn't understand why we left with only a prescription for tylenol with codeine. The tylenol worked for about an hour and then Malia was in pain again. She is sleeping now and I hope she has a good night. I get very angry at our health care system when I see her in pain and yet I know we have so much to be thankful for, living in a country with the health care we have. Malia is on a waiting list to have her cavities filled but it can take anywhere from 6 months to a year to finally get an appointment. We have been put on a cancellation list and I pray that Malia will soon be able to get in.

Our experience with the health care system has always been wonderful, and yet now that Malia needs to see various specialists it seems nearly impossible to get an appointment to see the right doctor. At the beginning of Sept. I tried to get an app't with our family doctor, but was strongly advised, due to Dr. Anne's busy schedule, to see a different doctor. This doctor barely heard a word I said, but she did make a referral. I thought the referral was to have a specialist look at Malia's partially repaired palate. I was not satisfied with this visit so I booked an app't with Dr. Anne and finally saw her in early Oct. At this app't Dr Anne informed me that an incorrect referral had been made. I explained that Malia has food going into her nose and that it can be very painful for her. We try to clean her nose once a day but it is very painful. According to the dr. this is the correct thing to do. I can hardly bear doing this to Malia every day. There are days when I am literally shaking after I have cleaned her nose. Martin and the boys don't like listening to her scream so I try to clean her nose when they are out. Dr. Anne made the correct referral saying she would put a rush on it. At the beginning of Dec. I called her office to see what was taking so long, only to be told there was no record that a referral was to be made. Eventually Dr. Anne was notified of the error and we saw the ENT on Dec. 24. The ENT is now referring us to the cleft lip/palate clinic (which, in my opinion, should have been done at our first app't). Malia will need to have tubes put in her ears. This should happen sometime this month.

All we can do now is pray. . . and make some phone calls! Starting Monday I will call the Pediatric Dentistry at RUH, Dr. Anne, our Dentist, and anyone else that I can think of that may be able to get Malia in for her oral surgery asap! I will call as often as I need to, even if it means everyday! After all, the squeaky wheel gets the grease!