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September 2, 2009
Tummy trouble
Monday night I was going to post a rant about how Katie had a stomach ache that somehow turned into an issue with the insurance company over a $200+ prescription, but in the end, the whole thing worked out for the price of a $35 copay and a return trip to Target that I needed to make anyway. Goody for me and my checkbook, but not so much fun to write.
I suppose I may as well document the visit, in any case. It's that or tell you about the way my husband avoids doing things by pretending that HE CAN'T EVEN HEAR ME.
Anyway.
Last spring, Katie had mentioned a couple times that her stomach hurt. She even told her preschool teachers once or twice (which is astounding in itself, since she wouldn't even tell them when she had to pee.) It only happened occasionally, and at the time, I chalked it up to the stress of the boy she was concerned about.
She still mentioned her stomach a few times after summer break started, though, and even brought it up to her grandpa a few times while she was in Maryland visiting him.
In the meantime, she got an ear infection, and then swimmer's ear. She would mention ear pain maybe once a day, even several days into the infections. I'm sure her ears must have been quite painful, but apparently she's incredibly stoic.
So that clinched it. I'm normally hesitant to make doctor's appointments for things like a stomach ache, because really, how can you pin that down? I don't want to waste my time to hear that it's gas pain or a plea for attention (and to be fair, I'm not sure that some of her complaints weren't for the attention factor. Especially after she came bouncing into my office one day and told me it hurt pretty bad, with a giant smile on her face.) but at this point, I'm starting to get concerned.
Luckily, our doctor knows me well enough to realize that if I'm concerned, there's probably a good reason. He took me seriously enough to follow up a "relatively benign" physical exam with an x-ray (that showed that her colon was enlarged on the left side, which would have been expected if she were "backed up," something Katie, uh, never is). We're going to try a 3-4 week course of Prevacid, and if that doesn't help, he'll refer us to a gastroenterologist.
It took a couple days to get everything straightened out with Katie's prescription, during which time she kept walking around saying things like "Do you have my medicine yet, Mama? I need my medicine." like a tiny little addict. I'm starting to wonder if I could have fixed the whole thing with a week's worth of sugar pills.
Posted by me at September 2, 2009 11:46 AM