Someone Needs A Time Out

Okay, here’s a rant. I promise I won’t do this often, but sometimes you just have to let the steam out of the pot before the lid blows.

Boy has finally been diagnosed with ADHD. It’s not the end of the world, and in certain ways, it’s a relief. It’s sort the of feeling you might have if you’ve had a collection of symptoms like fatigue, appetite changes, excessive thirst, etc., and some doctor finally say, Oh, you’re diabetic. You need to be on insulin. It’s not wonderful news, but it explains why you feel the way you feel. Yes, it’s a problem – but there’s a solution.

Theoretically.

So, Boy took this battery of tests in February, and got a definitive diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in April. (Did I mention, finally?) Rev and I sat down with the neuropsych tester and went through the myriad ways Boy’s brain works differently from others’. There are certain things he cannot do – like, I don’t know, pay attention? In school? Or stay on task long enough to get an assignment done? So he can pass his courses? The report recommends certain school accommodations, cognitive behavioral therapy, and stimulant medications (which sound counter-intuitive for a kid with ADHD, but actually make sense once you understand the chemistry of the brain).

A lot to deal with, but okay. Step at a time, people.

I take the Assessment/Diagnosis Report to his pediatrician, an easy-going guy who has a nice way with my sons. He’s already got the Assessment (sent to him by the neuropsych tester), has read it, and thinks that medication is an appropriate way to go. Dr. Easy Going carefully (and quite skillfully) explains to us that ADHD medication is much like putting on a pair of eyeglasses: you can get around the world in a fuzzy way without them, but when you put them on, everything comes into sharper focus and it actually makes life easier. After a short discussion, we get buy-in from Boy to give meds a try. This is also in April.

By the first week of May, we meet with a behavioral therapist, a soft spoken, straightforward man who comes highly recommended from a couple of different sources. Boy begins to meet with him once a week. I like Dr. Straightforward because he seems like he “gets” Boy. Dr. Straightforward also agrees that meds, in combination with therapy, would be helpful. He can’t prescribe them, though, because he is a psychologist, not a medical doctor or a psychiatrist. Ask your pedi for a prescription, he says, or get him to give you a referral to a psychiatrist.

I realize, somewhat belatedly, that while Dr. Easy Going was cool with the concept of medication, he never actually addressed putting a plan in place to get it done. I’ll have to talk to him about that.

So off I go, dopily, to the pediatrician office’s website to send an email letting Dr. Easy Going know about Dr. Straightforward and giving him a heads up that I need to talk to him about a medication plan. (I know enough by now that a request to actually talk to the doctor, unless it’s a middle of the night medical emergency, will result in a few days of telephone tag.) The website says that Dr. Easy Going only communicates with patients and families using a “patient porthole,” which is a whole separate secure website for emailing physicians, getting test results, and the like. That’s fine; my own HMO uses a similar website, and it’s pretty handy. I click the link.

The website is used by many of the major hospitals in the city, and requires you to enroll, of course, by providing your child’s medical record number or Social Security number. I scour the kid’s annual health forms, but there’s no number on that. I put in Boy’s Social. Three screens later, the website is admonishing me that I can’t enroll Boy because he is not 18 years old.

Well, duh. It’s a pediatrician!

After a frustrating journey through the Frequently Asked Questions – Really? I have to use my mouse to click on the browser buttons? I wouldn’t have known that, never having used a computer before. Thanks, FAQs! – I am stumped. So I call the pedi’s office, and humbly ask for some guidance.

Her response: Did you fill out the paperwork?

[Needle on record scratch] What paperwork?

Oh, there are some forms you have to fill out before you can enroll. Would you like to come pick them up at the office, or should I mail them to you? (Just an aside: these are the same people who will, with a straight face, charge you a $20 “fee” for printing out a camp/school health form if you misplace the free one they give you at the end of your kid’s checkup. I’m not kidding. Twenty American dollars, for printing out one page. But these forms, she’ll mail for free.)

Okay, you know, as tempting as it would be to take time off from work to go to your office to pick up forms (1) which you could have given me back in April when I was physically at your office for my son’s annual pointless interview physical exam, or (2) which you could easily, in the alternative, make available in downloadable form on your website so parents could, I don’t know, download them and fill them out and send them to you, I’m going to go with door number two: have you snail mail them to me so I can fill them out and snail mail them back to you so you can do whatever vital thing you need to do with them so I can sign up for your Patient Porthole so I can talk to the pediatrician about ADHD medication we all agreed in April – two months ago – that Boy should be on, and which I don’t even at this point know if the pediatrician even can or will prescribe because I can’t email him to ask him because he only uses the Patient Freaking Porthole which – AAARGH!!!!!!!

I think I may be in the market for a new pediatrician soon – along with a behavioral therapist for myself.