{"id":789,"date":"2010-08-09T10:14:04","date_gmt":"2010-08-09T15:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=789"},"modified":"2010-08-09T10:14:04","modified_gmt":"2010-08-09T15:14:04","slug":"why-i-didnt-like-health-east-clinic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2010\/08\/why-i-didnt-like-health-east-clinic\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Didn’t Like Health East Clinic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday, 06 August 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

So after spending my entire life without having a daughter or a nephew, I\u2019ve suddenly gained both in a matter of days. Last night (though I didn\u2019t find out about it until this morning) my wife\u2019s sister gave birth to little Asa. After only ten days as the youngest member of her family, Isla has already one-upped by her new cousin. I\u2019m not sure why, but my sister-in-law must have a strong drive to have the youngest grandchild in the family \u2013 her daughter Lyric had been the youngest grandchild for over four years, up until Isla was born last week. Now, she\u2019s gone and taken that title again. Oh well. We\u2019ll always have the oldest.<\/p>\n

Also today: I\u2019ve gotta comment on what a jolting contrast it is between our two interactions with the medical community.<\/p>\n

This morning, the midwives came for their one-week visit. Then, this afternoon, we took Isla to her first ever doctor\u2019s checkup. It was her first time in a car (which, hilariously, the midwife termed a \u201cblandmark\u201d). So, first we have to get in the car, then we have to find our way to this office, park in the ramp, then figure out how to get from the ramp to the office.<\/p>\n

Next, we were greeted at the front desk by a, \u201cWe\u2019ll be right with you guys.\u201d Then we had to fill out some paperwork, and have a seat in the waiting room, where we they\u2019d placed a sign that says \u201cIf you\u2019ve been waiting for more than 15 minutes, please let one of the front desk associates know.\u201d That\u2019s a rather depressing sign, and I\u2019ll explain why:<\/p>\n

See, the very existence of such a sign proves that sometimes, some people DO have to wait that long. So\u2026you might be among them. In fact, the existence of the sign indicates that there\u2019s been a problem at that particular location, and this is their attempt to remedy it. But notice the sign doesn\u2019t say they\u2019ll do anything about it \u2013 it just says to let them know, as if they\u2019re on some sort of twisted fact-finding mission. I\u2019ve walked up to the desk a couple of times to inform them of the long wait, and they don\u2019t do anything. They just say that they\u2019ll remind the doctor (or whoever) that you\u2019re waiting, and they ask you to go have a seat again.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we didn\u2019t have to wait fifteen minutes, but we did wait more than ten. Then we were shown to another room where we waited longer. Does the fifteen minutes \u201creset\u201d at this time? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

So then this nurse begins helping us. Despite the fact that Isla had just been measured and weighed at home, she felt the need to do it again. Which, is fine, but I thought it was funny she had to use this super-high-tech, digital computer thingy to weigh Isla, while the midwives just placed Isla in a sling and held it up as a spring registered the weight. The nurse got approximately the same weight, but she got a length measurement about two inches more than the midwives got. Despite her high-tech equipment, the nurse\u2019s measurement was wrong, as Jennifer and I re-measured Isla at home and there\u2019s just no way she\u2019s more than 20 inches long, much less 21 inches (unless you pull one of her legs out of it\u2019s socket. Do infants even have sockets yet?).<\/p>\n

While on the super-high-tech weighing bed, Isla peed. The nurse said to Isla: \u201cOh, you naughty girl.\u201d She said it in a playful manner, but I don\u2019t like the implication. Isla didn\u2019t do anything wrong \u2013 because peeing spontaneously, when 9 days old, and fully naked, seems like a perfectly natural, normal thing to do. There are so many other better things she could\u2019ve said. Maybe I should\u2019ve said something at that point, but all I could think to say was: \u201cFuck you, bitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then the nurse carried Isla back to the exam room. This, again, isn\u2019t really a problem, but it\u2019s funny that the midwives haven\u2019t even held Isla yet. And when they\u2019ve needed to handle her, they\u2019ve said things like: \u201cIs it okay if you put Isla in the sling here, so we can weigh her?\u201d It\u2019s just a different attitude. To me, the nurse is thinking: \u201cI\u2019ve gone to college for this sort of thing, so I know best how to carry an infant back into an exam room.\u201d<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the funny thing: she didn\u2019t know how to carry a baby at all. She held Isla out, away from her body, as far as possible, as if Isla was some disease-carrying receptacle that needed to be disposed of. Isla is easily startled, so she was quite frightened to be held out, limbs flailing, being carried through a cold and unfamiliar place by someone who smells like iodine.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the doctor was fine, but I wasn\u2019t in a good mood after all that. The bottom line is, home visits from people who treat birth and infants with the respect and sacredness they deserve easily trump corporate drones who are instructed to treat the human body as a pathology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday, 06 August 2010 So after spending my entire life without having a daughter or a nephew, I\u2019ve suddenly gained both in a matter of days. Last night (though I didn\u2019t find out about it until this morning) my wife\u2019s sister gave birth to little Asa. After only ten days as the youngest member of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":791,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions\/791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}