Monday morning my son Sean woke up vomiting. We took him to the doctor as soon as BYU's clinic opened, and a very patient doctor explained to us that the boy had a fairly standard case of gastroenteritis (a.k.a. stomach flu). He was kind of wiped out all that day, but seemed to get over it somewhat the next day. Wednesday morning came along, and he was acting like he was back to normal, but in the afternoon he started to get a bit hoarse. Just after I got back from campus the second time, around 1:00am, Sean woke up with a strange, high-pitched cough. I calmed him down, put him back to bed, but his labored breathing freaked me out a bit and I looked up his symptoms online. Every reference I found to his "barking cough" symptom explained that it is connected with croup, and usually not serious, but that you should call your doctor right away if it's accompanied by difficulty breathing or fever.

BYU's clinic doesn't open until 8:00am, so I looked up the phone number of the nearest ER, Utah Valley Regional Medical Center; they claim on their site to provide 24/7 suport. Our phone conversation:

Me (worried): "Hi, I'm worried about my son. How serious is labored breathing and a bit of a "barking" cough in a two-year-old, if there's no fever? Urgent enough to come in or can it wait till later?"

UVRMC (exasperated): "Well, I can't tell you if I haven't seen him, can I?" Click.

What. The. Heck. I call, apparently worried enough that this might be serious to call at 1:30 in the morning, and rather than an answer, or reassurance, or anything helpful at all, they hang up on me?? And to think I'm paying more on medical insurance premiums than I am on tuition. If any of you loyal readers out there are awake and working on a late-night feedreader fix, drop me a email and let this worried father know that this kind of hospital behavior isn't normal. It's not, right? Right?

Tags: phonecall hospital angry 8th november 2007