Its partly my own fault and that makes me madder…
Faith turned 12 weeks old last Sunday.
I had scheduled to take her to have her 12 week vaccinations on Tuesday. I was going to take her to the sister at our family doctor but even though she is lovely she is expensive (higher than medical aid rates) and you have to pay up front and then submit.
I spoke to a friend of mine who suggested taking her to the clinic at the Pick n Pay Norwood pharmacy. Apparently the sister there is amazing and they charge medical aid rates and submit without payment. When I got there at 2:30pm she had just taken lunch (late) and I didnt feel like waiting an hour for her to get back so against my better judgment I went to the clinic at Dischem.
A bit if background… I do not like the clinic sister at Dischem, I find her very rude, abrupt and impatient. We stopped taking Aaron there because if this.
So I wait in the queue adn eventually it is our turn. I try make conversation and get one word answers. She doesnt ask me anything about Faith and barely looks at either of us. She weighed her, measured her and then got all the medicine ready.
The first shot was ok, she said it wouldnt hurt and of course Faith cried. The second shot was supposedly the painful one and oh boy, Faith screamed! I also noticed that the sister wasnt holding her leg tight enough and Faith kept moving it, I could see the needle moving in and out of her thigh while the sister was pushing the plunger.
Now I dont cry when the kids get shots. Its part of life, they get the shot, they cry, its over, they forget about it. I dont cry or faint when I get shots or blood drawn. I was so close to crying when Faith got that last shot!!
I tried to get Faith to breastfeed to calm her down and she was so upset she wouldnt even take my boob. Eventually I got her to latch and she hiccuped while sucking for the next 10 minutes. Meanwhile the sister tried to get the invoice printed and proceeded to swear at the computer and abuse the tech she had on the phone. Im not a prude but some kind of professionalism would have been nice.
I came home and Faith seemed ok. She was super niggly the next day and I put that down to side effects of the shots (when I asked the sister said there would be no side effects). When I was changing Faith I noticed that the second injection site was extremely red and swollen and hard, about teh size of two R5 coins.
To cut a long story short, our family doctor sent us to have Faith’s leg scanned with an ultrasound to make sure that the huge hard lump wasnt an abcess and that it didnt need to be drained. According to the radiologist it was just a massive bruise. Our family doctor was furious that the sister would administer an injection that left such a huge bruise on a child.
When I went back into Dischem and told her about it, she shrugged, said that it was normal and that I should put arnica on it. She didnt even ask to see it.
The bruise is slowly going away and the hard lump is getting smaller. I will never go back to that Dischem clinic ever again. And I will be sending a letter of complaint to Dischem head office.
*Paul posted his thoughts here with a pictuer taken the day after the shot.
