Longest Eye Doctor Appointment Ever

This morning Ryan had his first appointment at his new eye doctor. I got a recommendation from his previous eye doctor on who to bring him to out this way after we moved. I have to say that everyone in the office was very nice and really good with Ryan, however his appointment was at 9am (we got there at 8:45am) and we did not walk out of there until 12:09pm!!! Ugh. It sucked so bad.

They didn't even call him back until 9:30 and the nurse didn't get done with him until 9:50. The doctor didn't come in until a few minutes after 10. One HOUR after his appointment time. I was already annoyed. He started his exam and about 20 minutes in, Ryan said he had to go to the bathroom. So the doctor told me to take him. We were gone about 3 minutes. We got back to the room and the doctor was in the next room doing an exam on another patient! He came in almost 10 minutes later. My annoyance level increased.

At this point, the doctor was ready to check the pressures in Ryan's eyes. For the past few years, this has been done under sedation, but the doctor wanted to try doing it with him awake. Ryan was done at this point and did not want to get back in the chair. It took a lot of coaxing and I don't even remember how we ended up doing it. He was not happy about getting the numbing drops in. In order to check the pressure, the doctor has to hold an instrument that sort of looks like a big ballpoint pen on his eye. Ryan did GREAT for it. The pressure in his right (bad) eye was on the high end of normal and the left eye was in the middle range of normal, so that was great :-).

Then of course the doctor wants to dilate his eyes. I know this means at least an additional 15-20 minutes just waiting for the drops to work. At this point it is 11:00. Two hours after his appointment time. I was supposed to be home by now so Joe could leave for a work appointment (he had Cole AND Brooke at the house). Luckily he was able to do the appointment over the phone. I called him to let him know what was up while we waited for the drops to work. The plan was for me to take Cole to preschool and he was going to go to work. I thought for sure we would be back by noon so I could do that. But 20 minutes go by and we are still waiting. Finally at the 30 minute mark, the nurse comes for him so she could have him look in the machine and take measurements of his eyes. Again, Ryan wanted nothing to do with it. I couldn't really blame him! They finally bribed him with a pretzel rod.

Then we go back to the room and the doctor is in another room, examing not one, but two kids. And WE have been there for 3 hours now! My annoyance level is through the roof by now! He FINALLY comes in about 10 minutes later and finishes the exam. I had a voicemail from Joe asking me to meet him at Cole's preschool after the appointment to get Brooke from him so he could go to work, but then he left another one saying he could just drop Brooke off there since it was on the way. They ended up getting there right when we came out from the exam room. Unbelieveable.

The doctor told Ryan that not all appointments will be that long. If the next one is even half as long, I think I'm looking for a new eye doctor. That is way too long to expect a 7 year old to wait and cooperate. He didn't even make it to school today. He missed lunch there and by the time I would have gotten him something to eat and to school it would have been about 1:00 and he was have had less than 2 1/2 hours before I would be back to pick him up. I don't think he was really in the mood to go after all of that, either. He only missed 4 or 5 days of school all year last year, so I'm not really worried about him missing 1 day already.

At least all was well. He is supposed to go back in 4-6 months for his next appointment.