The Surgery and FREE Medicine!
No, no one is having surgery here, it's just what the doctor's office is called...you don't go to the doctor's office here, you go to your local surgery. We are very pleased with our local surgery, we've met 5 of the 6 doctors that practice there. You are probably thinking, how we could possibly have met 5 doctors and we've only been here a little over a month right? Well, I'll tell you. Bailey got a chest infection not long after we got here, so we met Doc #1. He was very nice, gave us our antibiotics and we left. Seven days after finishing antibiotics, Bailey is still not well. We return to the surgery, meet Doc #2. Got more antibiotics. Went back the next week for a check up, and her chest was finally clear. In the meantime, Cerys came down with a fever and a cold and we got to see Doc #3, no meds were given, just let it 'run it's course." We were back a few days later with her, the "thing" did not run it's course very well, met Doc #4, got antibiotics. Then on Saturday, Bailey woke up with some not-so-nice drainage flowing, and I do mean flowing, from her ears. Not good. She got tubes right before we moved here, so I was a little panicked. The surgery is closed on weekends, so we had to suffer through the weekend and I got her in to see Doc #5 this morning. She has nasty ear infections, but thankfully the tubes are doing their job and draining it all out, otherwise all that not-so-nice drainage would be sitting in her ear right now. So, we got some more antibiotics. So I figured while I was in there, I might as well mention that I'm having sinus trouble myself and have not been able to smell or taste anything for a couple of weeks. Yep, you guessed it, I got antibiotic too. Not to mention that Bailey is teething right now, so needless to say, the last few nights have not been very pleasant for any of us!All this talk of antibiotics, I feel I should tell you that the doctors we have seen have been very good and have not just written us a "script" (prescription) just because. I was very pleased that Doc #3 just told us some things to do at home and didn't immediately write Cerys a script. Now, the reason for all the doctors, is that this is a GP surgery, not a pediatrician's office. Everyone in the fam sees a GP. So, when I would call for an appointment, we had to take the only available doctor. So, this morning I was really feeling embarrassed because I'm pretty sure we have been up at the surgery every week since we've been here. They either think I'm a paranoid American mom, or that I just really have nothing better to do than let my kids play with the toys in the waiting room?!? BUT...there is good news from all of this. Because of the NHS- National Health System the girls and I get FREE medicine! Because Bailey is under a year old, she gets free medicine and because I am her mommy, I get free medicine...seriously. It's some maternity code or something, you get free meds while you are pregnant and the first year of your baby's life. Cool huh? Not sure why Cerys' medicine was free, but I'll take it! They just handed it to me in the Chemist (oh, that's the pharmacy y'all) and smiled and walked away. So I'll have to investigate the reason for that one. There are lots of drawbacks from having a nationalized health system, like waiting for 7 years for a knee replacement or other major surgery but I won't go into that right now. I'll just take my free medicine.