He's Already a Disaster

So my 4:15pm patient and his mother show up at around 4:45pm today. I wasn't terribly bothered because it wasn't a full exam, I had a slow afternoon, and the mother screamed as she walked in the door: "We're late. Sorry. We completely forgot about the appointment and then when we remembered we rushed right over."

I took them back to the exam room and said: "So wuz up?" Nah. I really said "What can I do for you today?" As the kid had just had an exam a couple of months ago.

(Earlier in the day I came this close to saying: "Come back after you see your retinitis pigmentosa dude." but caught myself just in time and said, "come back after you see your retinitis pigmentosa duuu..doctor." Now for all of the optometrists who might read this don't roll your eyes at me. I don't know why she sees an RP dude. She just does. I'm not gonna steal patients.)

Anyway back to the kid.

I sit in my chair face the kid and ask "What can I do for you today." All of a sudden I hear a whirlwind of chatter from behind my back as the mother speaks a mile a minute about his eyes this and his contact lenses that. This kid is like 15 and Mum didn't even let him have a chance to answer. So she talks and talks. When she finishes I turn back to the kid and say, "So Jim (not his real name) what do you have to say?"

I hate it when the "guest" in the exam room talks for the patient. It bothers me so much.

Anyway it turns out that his contact lenses feel dry... or he has a tick from his ADHD... or its from his medicine for his ADHD because they just upped his meds. This started the first of many arguments between patient and Mum. He tells me that he has no idea what she is talking about. That his lenses are fine. That she made his physician up his meds and that they make him feel weird and so on and so forth.

Mum yells at patient that he just started his new meds a few days ago. He yells back. I sit and stare at my chart.

I end up changing his contact lenses because, in my humble opinion, he was in crappy contact lenses. We go back to the room so I can look at them as the patient complains that the lenses feel terrible.

He then proceeds to say that there was nothing wrong with his old lenses to which Mum yells then why were you rubbing your eyes so much, blinking so much, why did your teachers complain so much. And so on and so forth.

They continue to yell at each other while I look dumbly at the chart. Eventually they tire out and I ask the kid "Now that we've had a chance to talk about other things how do the lenses feel?"

Kid: "Oh. They actually feel very good. Much better than the other ones."

They argue some more.

Then Mum turns to me and says: "He just started his freshman year (Grade 9 for you Canadians)and they've only been in school for four weeks and he is already a disaster."

My heart breaks for the kid. His mum just called him a disaster. He is obviously socially awkward. I am sure that school isn't much fun for him. He probably has a few friends and they try to hide their days away in high school and here she is calling him a disaster.

What can you say? I just said, "You're not a disaster. I think these contact lenses will work much better for you."

What goes through parent's minds? Calling your kid a disaster! So sad.