Dawn-Louise McLeod
OP Columnist

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
  
 
 
   
  
 
   
   
 
 

Ever since I was a kid, Remembrance Day
has lived in my memory as the day after
which we could officially start focusing on
Christmas. But I’ve always loved it for
being a sort of non-celebratory holiday, a
meditative day on which to contemplate
death and the effects of war. It, rather
than November 1, has always been All
Soul’s Day for me.

Now that’s not to say that it can't be
fun. Keeping in mind, of course, that I
love ritual, military music, uniforms, cute
men, and parades, and that a walk in the
cemetery is my idea of a good time. This
|past Remembrance Day was a blast,
minus the tombstones.

Lest you think this too frivolous an atti-
| tude, let me remind you that having fun is
solace for sorrow. Think of R-Day as one
| big wake, where members of the commu-
Hnity of all ages and backgrounds com-
/memorate those who died in the name of
|world peace. Rather than being a celebra-
tion of war and death, it is a ritualistic
pondering of what can happen when

Erin Culhane
Opinions Editor

  

things get really out of hand.

So I wasn't too thrilled when I woke up
late last Monday, after a crazy weekend of
too many peach ciders and way too much
information. Fortunately, I have a casual
attitude about timeliness when it comes
to any event other than work or school.

| arrived, breathless and sweating, at the
outskirts of the crowd at the cenotaph in
North Vancouver’s Victoria Park, just as
eleven Cessna 172-looking planes buzzed
overhead. Being late for a crowd event can
have its advantages, however—by then
everyone has settled into their slots, mak-
ing it easier to determine vantage sight
lines. Near the emergency vehicles, I
found ingress into the loosely packed
crowd, and wove my way into the centre
of gravity. Mud squelched between bright
green blades beneath my shoes as the rain
pelted down. A lens to the embattled
trenches, the ceaseless rains, the smell of
death. Perfect weather.

Water mixed with sweat on my face, as
I held my hat and strong young voices

Diagnosis: Lazy Doctors

    

sang, “Oh God, Our Hope in Ages Past.”
Each year the voices of the veterans
diminish, as they succumb to the annihi-
lation they once escaped, and melt from
our ranks. Noting the professional pho-
tographers and thinking about the confer-
ence I'd been at for the past two days, I
dodged the usual token restraining ropes
and crept in for more advantageous shots
of the action—flags, wreaths, faces, the
North Vancouver Youth Band, and some
really good-looking RCMP officers in full
uniform.

I managed to get a couple of close-up
shots of my son playing his trombone
before he told me to “get away.” He's at
the age where he doesn’t want to acknowl-
edge me in public. “Mom, you're not sup-
posed to go in front of those ropes,” he
said. I didn’t notice any bouncers, though.
Plus one of the other band moms ran out
of film, which gave me an excuse to keep
taking pictures, cursing my digital cam
the whole time. It’s slow and it’s unreli-
able, but I didn’t care if it got soaking wet.

And it gave me an excuse after the cere-
mony to scamper up Lonsdale with the
parade, enroute to the J.P. Fell Armouries.
A far better photo than any I took subse-
quently appeared on the cover of the
North Shore News as part of its obligato-
ry coverage of the event, featuring a
solemn-looking but delectable firefighter.
A young girl in a drenched shirt held a
Canadian flag aloft in For-God-and-
Country mode like she was Jeanne d’ Arc.
I snapped the picture, then recognized her
as an intense kid from my son’s French

immersion class. Familiar faces were
everywhere.

Diving in and out of the crowd to the
combined soul music of the bagpipes and
a military marching band is a great way to
get a workout. What heaven, between
digital recall in suburbia and “Scotland
the Brave.” Meanwhile, from the band’s
front line, beside a guy in a kilt, my son
flashed me the evil “get lost, Mom” eye.

At the Armouries, it was all about polit-
ical candidates doing the HP (high
Profile) thing, parents looking for their
kids, and cute guys in uniform milling
about aimlessly. My day was made when I
saw a tasty RCMP officer hoisting a can
of Molson Canadian. Yes, there was a bar.
People were hanging out by the Smithrites
with their cigarettes and their rum-and-
cokes. One kid from the band was picking
up all the dropped poppies, planning to
add them to the hundreds he’s already
pinned to the ceiling of his mom's car.
Wistfully checking out all the eye candy,
now in full party mode, I remarked to a
friend how I'd rarely seen so many men in
one locale. “Sure you want me to drive
you back to your car?” she said.

Wouldn't you know it, though, the call
of homework was more powerful than the
call of nature. Or whatever you call it
when the hormones kick in.

Dang it, anyhow. But it was a great
parade.

Did you remember to “Lest we forget”?
iconoclastcom@yahoo.ca

Ethan spent the first three weeks of his life a hungry,
sleepy, poopy and very content little fellow. Being that his
mom Christine is a good friend of mine, I had the pleas-
ure of experiencing his sunny disposition.

But after week three, Ethan began to change. He was
still hungry, but began to throw up after almost every
meal. He was sleepy, yet couldn't stay asleep for longer
than a couple of hours and the poopy only came calling
once every few days. As each day passed, Ethan became
more unhappy.

At five-and-a-half weeks, Christine brought Ethan to
his family doctor. “I thought it was my breast milk and
told the doctor that he was throwing up after every feed-
ing,” she said. The doctor tried to allay her concerns and
told her to “top him up” with formula.

So Christine and her husband did as the doctor told
them, but Ethan continued to projectile vomit.

At eight weeks Ethan and mom were back at the doc-
tor. “Something is wrong,” Christine told him, “This is
not normal—he’s eating three ounces and vomiting two.”
The doctor weighed the baby and informed Christine
that he was underweight. He instructed her to use a

thicker formula and to call him if the baby vomited
again.

Not surprisingly Christine was back at the doctor's the
next day at 4:20, but the office, which was supposed to

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
   
  
  
   
  

be opened until five o’clock, was already closed. Christine
headed to the emergency department and asked to see a
pediatrician. There wasn't one available, so the emergency
doctor examined Ethan. “He didn’t talk to me while he
examined Ethan, he just talked to the student doctor.”

When he did speak to Christine, he said, “He's fine. If
he was projectile vomiting it would shoot across the
room.”

“Well, it may not go across the room, but it hits me in
the face,” replied Christine.

“Look, if you want to get another opinion, you can. I
know you're a new mom, but youre worrying for noth-
ing,” he said.

For nothing? I’ve done a lot of worrying in my seven
years of motherhood, but it hasn't been for nothing. As
easy as it might be for a doctor to paint a new mom with
the “overprotective-neurotic” brush, it certainly doesn't
help in making an effective diagnosis.

That night I phoned Christine and she was beside her-
self with worry. As we spoke I dusted off one of my baby
reference books and started reading about vomit. In min-
utes, we had diagnosed Ethan with pyloric stenosis. “The
muscles around the...channel at the bottom of the stom-
ach begin to thicken. This narrows the passage from the
stomach into the gut, slowing up the milk’s escape route”
(Your Baby & Child, Penelope Leach).

I didn’t hear from Christine for three days. In that
time, she went back to the doctor and told him what she
thought was wrong. He examined the baby (he'd lost six
ounces in two days), concurred with her diagnosis and
sent her immediately to a pediatrician. The next day,
Ethan had surgery to repair his pylorus and is now “a new
baby” according to mom.

It seems to me that if Christine's doctor or even the
emergency doctor, had taken her a little more seriously
when she first raised her concerns, Ethan could have been
diagnosed and had his surgery three weeks before he did.

I’m sure every doctor gets his/her share of “quacks” —
patients that are looking for something (anything) wrong
with them. But being a worried new mom is not synony-
mous with hypochondria, and confusing the two doesn’t
make for efficient health care.

For Christine, the experience has taught her to be more
assertive. Her advice to other new moms: “Go with your
mother’s instinct. Get a second, maybe a third opinion.”

I saw Ethan this weekend and he’s definitely back to his
“old” self, but for his crookedly shaved head and the
three-centimetre-long scar on his tummy. Now that he’s
spending less time barfing, he has more energy to say
things like “Oh, oh, oh,” and “Oh, oh.” He's a clever lit-
tle boy, I tell you. Maybe he'll grow up to be a pediatri-

cian.

 

 

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