Tuesday morning I woke up to a scary sight.At 7am Tristan woke up and his ears were swollen, the back of his neck was swollen and he was covered in red bumps. At first I thought it might be chicken pox because the bumps were small.....and then the bumps started to grow and join together. I knew something was wrong so we were at the pediatrician first thing and found out that he had developed an allergy to penicillin. Tristan still had an ear infection so the nurse practitioner gave him another antibiotic and sent us home with benadryl. I was thinking this was more serious than that but since the nurse wasn't too worried I assumed I was just being a normal mom and freaking out. Boy was I wrong.(At this point I should just say that all moms should just trust their instincts. If you think something is seriously wrong don't let other people pat you on the back and make you feel better when your gut is telling you it is something more serious!) The medicine the nurse had given to Tristan only aggravated the allergic reaction and by the next day we were rushing to urgent care. I can't believe I took Tristan to day care that morning, but the nurse told me it was ok and he was fine! I rushed to get him as soon as they called me at work and Tristan was shaking and his hives had turned hot and red. His whole back was just a blanket of swollen red skin. I called the pediatrician on the way to the daycare and after explaining the situation I was told "the nurse will call you right back". I was already mad that they had sent us away the day before when it was obviously more serious than they made it out to be, so I made up my mind that if the nurse did not call me back by the time I had Tristan in the car we were going straight to urgent care. It was a good choice to go to urgent care because the dr saw us right away, told us the medicine the nurse had given us was a mistake and that children allergic to penicillin are prone to be allergic to that too and gave Tristan a shot right away to kill the allergic reaction. The urgent care dr did not tell us to go back to our pediatrician, he told us to follow up with him as soon as they opened the next morning. On the way home (an HOUR later)the nurse called me back and asked me how Tristan was doing. I told her I had explained the situation on the phone already and we rushed him to urgent care because it was a serious reaction. After I told her this I asked if we should bring Tristan up there to be seen by his dr and she said "no, if you've decided to listen to the urgent care dr you should just do that since he is the one you decided to go to. You could have come here though and we would have fit you in between appointments you do have that option you know. Your message wasn't marked as urgent in my box so I didn't call you back right away, if it was marked as urgent I would have called you sooner." It wasn't so much what she said but how she said it all snotty and like I had done something wrong by quickly getting my child helped...and HOW is "child has fever, is shaking, turning red and covered in hives" not a serious message?!?! I couldn't resist at this moment and I snapped back "Yesterday we came in and his face was swollen and it was obviously serious and we had to wait over an hour to be seen by a nurse. Thats why I took him to urgent care because we couldn't wait" Then I said we would see them at his follow up at the end of the month and hung up the phone. Boy was I MAD. I had gone through my child being traumatized and the nurse had the audacity to question my parenting skills because I didn't go to THEIR dr. Goodbye Parkside Pediatrics. First you gave my son an antibiotic he was allergic to, then you gave him another antibiotic he was prone to be allergic to because you have lack of communciation between your nurses and dr.'s then you were rude to me over the phone and didn't treat my son's condition as serious. I will not be going back to your office or be calling to ask your advice.
