It never ends

I took the youngest to the opthamologist yesterday about the allergic rash inside her eyelids.

It was fun and games when I tried to collect her from the school office. The receptionist stared at me in horror when I asked to sign her out.

“No, you need to send a note in the morning asking permission to take your child out of school and it must be approved by the deputy principal,” she replied.

I stared at her. She stared at me. The silence stretched between us.

Bureaucracy riles the bejesus our of me, but I resisted rolling my eyes and (fairly) calmly said: “She has an appointment with a specialist in 15 minutes. She can’t miss it.”

The receptionist started babbling about my daughter knowing the rules … it’s in the handbook … blardy blah blah … WHATEVER!

Finally, the receptionist reluctantly sent a runner to extract the youngest from class. I asked if I could sign the youngest out to save time.

“No, no, we have to wait until she’s here.”

Of course we do.

We got to the opthamologist appointment with 30 seconds to spare. Then we endured 90 minutes of palaver due to preliminary testing by his assistant, which included the youngest’s pupils being dialated with drops. The drops took 30 minutes to kick in, so we popped over to ALDI for some sport leggings while we waited.

The opthamologist finally wobbled out to meet us about 60 minutes into the process … he must have been 70 in the shade.

He agreed that the youngest did in fact have allergic conjunctivitis and scribbled down the name of a different type of over-the-counter drops for us to try. I was so thrilled to hand over $250 for that.

He also noted that the youngest had some skin tags on her eyelids and suggested he could remove them on our next visit.

The youngest hates those skin tags. But, once we got outside she said there was NO WAY that doddery old man was going near her eyes with a cauterizing pen.

I’ve placed that problem in the too-hard basket for a little while.

I’d been hoping to put the youngest on a bus and get back after the appointment, but she was temporarily legally blind from the eye drops so I had to drive her.

Next job on my list is a radiology scan for the eldest’s recently diagnosed scoliosis.

And I’ve also booked an “exotic pet” vet appointment for the rat’s chest rattle on Friday.

The eldest keeps holding it up and saying: “Can’t you hear she’s breathing funny?”

Er, no. I have bugger all idea what abnormal rat breathing sounds like.

But, hey, let’s spend gawd knows how much putting a teeny, tiny stethoscope on a rodent’s chest.

I can’t quite believe I’ve booked a medical appointment for a rat. I told the eldest they had to do it because they were the one who got the secret bloody rat in the first place. But their phone phobia is worse than mine.

The conversation with the “exotics” receptionist went like this …

Receptionist: Have you been here before?

Me: Yes, you neutered my bunny.

Receptionist: Frodo?

Me: Yep, that’s the one!

Receptionist: And what can we help you with this time?

Me: I have a rat with respiratory issues.

Receptionist: What’s the rat’s name?

Me: Twitch

Receptionist: What type of rat is Twitch?

Me: …

Receptionist: Domestic?