Autism & I: Dr Useless at his most useless
I can’t believe that it’s taken me 6 days to continue on with my story about our visit to see Dr Useless, Jake’s pediatrician. The thing is, I was daunted by the idea of how to get the pictures off my phone to post them here and I’ll admit that it was simply easier to put it off. You know, I’m quite a techie – I love my computer, my Netbook, my iPod Touch, our X-Box, my Nintendo DSi, etc, etc – but getting pics off my phone seemed more difficult. Anyway, it turns out, it wasn’t hard at all. I emailed them to myself! Brilliant!
Anyway, so I’ve written about our Dr Useless many times before. I call him that because, well, you can guess why, right?Â
Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew
A few month’s back, I called their office and made an appointment for a check-up for Jake and that appointment came up just a week or so ago. The receptionist at Dr Useless’ office is very understanding of our situation and will normally accomodate me when I request the first appointment of the day so that I don’t have to wait too long with Jake, who is not a good wait-er. Obviously, for things like check-ups, I’m happy to wait longer for the appointment as long as we don’t have to wait too long on the day.
This receptionist recently advised me though that the first appointment of the day would not be that great for us because “the doctor is sometimes late”. Ah, I see. So she suggested a 2pm appointment because they’d be back from lunch and the good doctor wouldn’t be late. Great, I said. Thank you!
So I picked Jake up early from school and we arrived at the doctor’s office at 1:55pm. There was another mother and child sat on the floor in the hallway outside his office and a note on the door:
- 2:15???
Wednesday, June 1st/2011
Office will re-open at 2:15
Please wait.
Thank you.
And I saw red. Unreasonably? No, I don’t think so. I went on to tell this other woman as calmly as I could, while Jake raced up and down the hall, that Jake had autism and that I dreaded the next 20 minutes. She also had an appointment at 2pm!
Jake’s mood fluctuated between giddy, uncontrollable excitement (causing him to run and squeal) and nervous pacing (causing him to moan, cry and try to drag me to the stairs to get the hell out of there). Twenty minutes can sometimes seem like an eternity.
There was a second note on the door:
- Don’t knock???
Office Lunch Hours
So, I knocked on the door. And knocked again. No one answered and there was no noise from within.  As Jake ran down the hall and started hammering on another doctor’s door, I quickly stopped him and led him back to Dr Useless’ door to wait. When he decided to hammer on that one, I was much less concerned with stopping him. Then he repeatedly flicked their metal mailbox flap in the door and I let him do that too.
I may sound like a bitter and twisted woman but I have to point out that I do everything in my power to make Jake’s life as stress-free as possible. That in turn helps to keep my life as stress-free as possible. Autism is a widely-recognized disability that is so much more understood that it used to be. I’m simply asking for a little bit of compassion and respect for Jake and his situation.
When the receptionist finally opened the door, I did not say anything to her – It wasn’t her fault. We waited about 5 minutes to see the doctor, which was fine. But I didn’t say anything to him either. Why? Well, what was the point? I’m not one to shy away from confrontation, but I truly lacked the energy to complain. Not because Jake was particularly bad or anything, but just because I felt like it would have been wasted energy.
I want the world to see that a seemingly tiny little incident like the one I’ve just described can quickly break down into tears and tantrums. And I don’t just mean Jake!
June 9, 2011
Posted in: Main, Photos
Name:
Nicola
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