Tessa Tuesday
Today is all about Tessa. Why? Because I have some cute photos of her to show off and because she had a doctor appointment yesterday. And the doctor had a med student (or resident? or intern? I don’t know – they left him alone with us so he had achieved some level of trust) shadowing him – that’s often good for a chuckle.
The med student wasn’t horrible…he just needed to work on his social skills. Really work. His grasp of the English language was better than many native speakers but his accent was a little rough. The nurses hate him. Our regular nurse rolled her eyes at me behind his back no fewer than 4 times. We painfully plodded through the well check questions.
Med Student: Do you give her fluoride regularly?
Me: Ummm…no.
MS: So you give her bottled water?
Me: Huh?
*Awkward Silence as I try to puzzle out what he is talking about.*
Me: Oh you mean do we use tap water with fluoride when we make formula bottles? Yes.
Med Student: Do you have a nickname for her?
Me: Tessa or Tess is about it. (I wasn’t about to go into the odd and silly things we call her at home.)
MS: I like to call my patients Sweet Pea or Honey Pie.
*Awkward pause while I try to formulate a response to such a weird declaration.*
Me: Have at it. She is only 6 months old so she’ll answer to anything.
Med Student: It says here that your other child (pointing at Sabrina) is adopted. Does he/she have any communicable diseases?
*Dumbfounded silence. Does he not see my child sitting right there? She is 2 and very aware.*
Me: No.
Med Student: Are all of Tessa’s shots current?
Me: I assume so. This office is in charge of that though – perhaps you want to check the file?
MS: Oh. Yes.
Med Student during his nervous examination of Tessa’s soft spot on her head (I think he was afraid of her – or maybe me): Hmmm…very flat.
Med Student scribbles something in his notes but says nothing more.
Me with some anxiety: Is that a bad thing?
MS: Huh? Oh. No. Flat is good. Bumpy is bad.
He continues his examine making all sorts of worrisome sounding noises. If I was an nervous mother, I would have been climbing the walls by the time the real doctor came in the room. Med Student also looked like he wanted to floor to open up and swallow him when asking about breast feeding. Thankfully, our regular doc joined us.
New was that Tessa has gained over a pound in the past month but has fallen %tile wise. She was in the 9th and 8th %tiles for weight and height last month. Now she is in the 5th for both. He reassured me that since she has remained proportional he thinks she is just going to be a “late bloomer”. He wants us to keep shoving food into her as often as she’ll eat but otherwise he said to not be too worried. We are going back in 6 weeks for another weight check to keep an eye on things. Hopefully Med Student will be back in school by then.
