Most days I’m able to get up and do my “mom thing” without much emotion or forethought. Today was like any other day, tooling along as I juggled convincing LuLu to do her composition assignment, letting the cable TV people in and out of the house to repair our service, and conferencing with LuLu’s teacher.

This afternoon we headed off to the long-awaited endocrinologist appointment (made 2 ½ months ago). I had major trepidation about this appointment, because I’d been forewarned by all the doctors “on our team” that endocrinologists are notoriously cautious and would likely not see LuLu’s elevated TSH levels as any big deal. But today, as if some sort of brain fog, I wasn’t thinking much about that. Instead, I was fascinated by the latest speech evaluation we received, happy to hear that the school is about to assign us a speech therapist, and tickled that our friend who stops by to help LuLu with reading was getting such great cooperation from LuLu today.

So, I grabbed the stack of already completed paperwork out of my 4-inch medical notebook and rushed out the door for the appointment. LuLu was increasingly anxious on the way there, wanting to know exactly what this doctor was going to do. I tried to explain to her what I thought an endocrinologist does and her other doctors’ concerns about three different thyroid tests.

Last week I took nearly two hours to complete the paperwork, typing up a list of my concerns and her current medications. In fact, I took so long one afternoon that by the time I put it on the fax machine to send it to the doctors’ office (their paperwork said it was REQUIRED that I fax or mail the paperwork in advance), they had shut their machine off for the night. So I sent it the next morning.

Well, of course, they did not have the faxed copy in her chart waiting for us. (What was the point of faxing it over again?) Now, I had grabbed most of the forms, but for whatever reason the notes I’d typed were not in there…and I was lost.

By the time that the doctor saw us, LuLu was fit to be tied. She was bouncing all over the room and alternating between being giddy and being down right rude and nasty. She immediately confused and insulted the doctor, and I could see her irritation building with us. She was even more irritated that she was called in to look at the test results of a child who she considered having borderline elevated TSH levels at best. She hinted that our pediatric gynecologist was a tad overzealous. (Meanwhile, LuLu is cussing and blowing snot all over because doctor has told her she is going to check her pubic area for hair growth. In my note it would have told her not to say anything like this out loud because of LuLu’s trauma background. And frankly I had no idea she would want to look there, or I would have found a way to tell her before she said it.)

I could feel the entire situation spinning rapidly out of control. You know…that feeling that you can see the Mack truck barreling toward you and you are helpless to get out of the way. I pulled LuLu to my lap (all 100+ pounds of her) to calm her, and she proceeded to yank my hair, grab a plastic glove out of the box on the counter and stuff it in her mouth, and wipe her nose on my shirt. All the while, me trying to have an “adult” conversation with the doctor, to both understand what she was saying and interject how aggressive we’d like to see this treated.

Bottom line was that she ran another set of blood tests, tried to blame some of the meds LuLu’s on for the elevated levels and told us she’d call me to report whether today’s tests showed any increased likelihood that LuLu was having thyroid problems. Never mind that LuLu, for the past year, has slept nearly 14-16 hours daily and is gaining weight rapidly. Both of these could be med symptoms, she declared. It did not matter that her meds have changed drastically since July, but her symptoms have not. Oh well...it wasn’t like I hadn’t been warned.

The real kicker was when the doctor told LuLu that she did not have thyroid problems and that she looked very healthy to her. Now, I don’t know who this doc is kidding. She knows this kid is not healthy just from watching her those 20 minutes of so. It reminded me of the 10-minute appointment LuLu had with a neurologist years ago(that I waited nearly 6 weeks for) so that he could “officially” diagnose her with Tourettes. Twice he asked me if I could “control her” because her anxiety (hyperactivity) was causing her to bounce around the room. (Duh, just why did he think we’d come to see him?) He noted several complex physical tics and then told me that he couldn’t officially diagnose her with Tourettes because I had just told him that I didn’t recall she had any of the cussing/verbal tics show up until just 8 months prior; and that Tourettes requires that a person exhibit both physical and verbal tics for at least a year. So she became pre-Tourettes.

Pleeze…

I had been forewarned that this was the likely outcome of this appointment. And I wonder…what’s the point? I also wonder what the other doctors on “our team” will want to do now. The three to whom I’ve spoken all believe her thyroid issues should be treated. Meanwhile, her stomach pain continues, and no one has a nice answer for that one either.

So, as we left the doctor’s office…LuLu much calmer than before…I mentioned that I was disappointed with her behavior and that she didn’t trust me when I told her this doctor wasn’t going to hurt her, give her a shot or do anything scary. So she alternated between apologizing profusely and raging that I “shouldn’t be upset at me because I didn’t do anything wrong.” Blowing your nose on your mom’s shirt and saying cuss words isn’t inappropriate?

I’ve been hit by that Mack truck – and have a little bulldog impression on my forehead!

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