"Do Yay, Do Yay"

I don't know about you, but for my money, taking a small child to see a doctor has to rank up there on the most undesirable things list. Agreed? And if that child who needs to see the doctor happens to be a four-year-old who is prone to meltdowns upon seeing the nurse or the physician's assistant or the doctor, it just makes it for a much more wearing time, ya know.

Guess who had just such a visit on the agenda today? Yep, me!

Maya initially brought this cold or infection or whatever the heck it is that has infested everyone in the house (except for her Dad) home two days after she started school. Typical, right? Send a kid to school and what do they do? Bring home a cold or some other infection first doggone thing!

Ok, that was a month ago and she promptly passed it off to her brother. Then they ganged up on me, also gave it to their mother and older sister Kate too. So all of us have been either grabbing kleenex constantly to contain the runny nose, wiping watery eyes or, as in my case initially, coughing -very deep, annoying barking coughs too. Well, last week, when Kurtis had a doctor's appointment it was determined he had a sinus infection. When I happened to have a doctor visit last week too, that's pretty much what they said I had as well -and Mandy too. Maya had, or so it appeared, just left the bug lightly pass through her on its way to bigger and better targets.

That apparently backfired this week though as on Monday she started whining, her voice sounding very scratchy, then coughing. By Tuesday night-Wednesday morning, she had Mandy up in the middle of the night with her coughing, barking, sobbing too. Mandy called the doctor that morning and they told her to get a specific brand of children's cough medicine to give her.

Now there's a fight and a half too if you want to see one! It's absolutely amazing how strong a certain four-year-old can get when you approach her with a little eye-dropper thing filled with cough medicine! Generally it takes two very strong -and agile - adults to catch her and then, hold her down in order to get the meds into her and that night/morning was certainly no exception to that rule.

Thursday afternoon, I noticed that Maya looked very flushed -her cheeks were really a very bright pink. I touched her cheek and forehead and to the touch, you could tell she had a fever. So, out came the thermometer -one that you put in her ear -and it registered 102.4 so Grammy here called the doctor. The orders of the day were then to give her children's tylnol along with the cough medicine and see if the fever came down over night. If not, we were to call the doctor this morning and get an appointment to bring her in.

Last night, in the middle of the night, Maya awoke, coughing very hard, gagging - really sounded like she was about to choke. She had Mandy up for over an hour, trying to get meds into her and getting her calmed down again. This morning, although the fever had come down, she sounded really, really scratchy when she tried to talk and the cough was still there, very persistent so Mandy called the doctor and they said to bring her in at 11 a.m.

Now, since Mandy had to work this morning, it was going to be either I would take her to the doctor or her dad would have to do that. Since she usually reacts calmer with me than with her dad in situations like that, I got the nomination.

When we left the house this morning, we reminded Maya to take her own little doctor's kit with her so she could show it to Dr. Mary - who is really the physician's assistant but, well we refer to her as Dr. Mary anyway.

One nice thing now is that Maya has at least calmed enough about a doctor visit that she doesn't start wailing, kicking and screaming as soon as you pull in the parking lot. Nor does she howl in the waiting room now either. She busies herself gathering books or toys in the waiting room till her name is called. That right there is progress for her - big time!

Ok, Kathy the LPN, comes out and calls us to come back. Maya goes willingly until we get to Kathie's station and she spies the thermometer -one of those "insert in the ear" types. We have one like that at home now too and the past couple of days, she's done very well, fairly calmly, about allowing us to take her temperature so I'm thinking maybe, just maybe, she will surprise Kathie and remain calm when she takes her temperature today.

Yeah, it was a nice thought! Although she wasn't near as bad in her behavior as she has been known to be in the past - no one needed ear plugs while Kathie managed to check for a fever.

On back to the examining room we went. Although she started to whimper slightly when we walked in there, I got her to open her doctor kit and show Kathie what she had in there - a stethoscope and a toy blood pressure cuff and ball. Kathie made a big fuss over her having that and they compared notes on Maya's to Kathie's -which of course is the real thing.

Then, after a very short wait, in comes Doctor Mary. She's dealt with Maya for over two years now and has seen her probably at her worst too so she's prepared for what could be quite the confrontation.

Mary wants to start by checking Maya's ears and at first Maya was objecting -not really loud though -but just saying her normal response when she doesn't want to do something, "All done, all done!" But then she pointed to two instruments sitting on the table beside the chair where I was seated and made it clear to Mary that she wanted her to use one of them to check her ears. Fortunately, that's exactly what one of them was meant for so she quietly allowed Mary to look to see if there was any infection there. All clear, was Mary's report to me.

Then she even opened her mouth to let her look back at her throat -even said "Aaaahhh" without being asked too. I was impressed. Wow! Things are very much looking up I foolishly thought to myself. We're gonna be done here and out in record time.

Not quite.

Next on the examination came checking her chest with, of all things, the stethoscope. And at the mere move in her direction by Mary with the stethoscope in hand, she began protesting, loud, louder, then very loudly. Mary and I both tried to get her attention away from that, talking to her, cajoling her and she was still determined no way! Finally, Mary said to look, she was going to check Grammy's chest, then her back too - to listen to make sure everything was ok. Maya watched, listened then right back to the protests again.

She got down on the floor on all fours and crawled around behind the examining table, thinking she could escape only to find her way blocked there by my chair and me. Ok, she turned back around and headed back to the foot of the examining table and stood up, watching as Mary and I chatted back and forth a bit.

Finally, Maya looked up at us and said "Do yay? Do Yay?" I glanced and Mary, shrugging my shoulders and told her I had narry a clue as to what she was trying to tell us. Finally, a bit exasperated with us both, Maya repeated these two words again, clapping her hands together as she said that and it dawned on me what she was trying to get across to us.

If she allowed Mary to check her chest, were we then going to applaud her and say "Yay, Yay!" What she was actually saying to us was "Will you DO YAY, YAY?" Oh my yes, baby, lots and lots of "do yays" for sure.

Mary hurried and got the stethoscope in position, did her thing and we were done.

As we were leaving the examining room, Mary was standing just outside the door, finishing up marking Maya's chart and telling Kathie that we'd discovered a new word today - "Doyay!" And of course, we both explained the whole thing to Kathie and had a good chuckle.

As we were leaving, Mary began to sing "Oh do yay, do ya, do remember me." And I leaned over to her, whispering "I think the correct words are really "Do Lord, Oh Do Lord, oh do remember me" but she laughed and said she much preferred Maya's version.

And you know what? So do I!

Oh yes, lots and lots of "Do yay" going on!