Common thread with Medical concerns

[verum71]

As I am reading through many of the posts, it seems to me that there is a common thread when it comes to medical concerns for the kids.  I too have been left off of forms at clinics, not notified of appointments or medical emergencies, been denied to be a part of a meeting with doctors or treated as a bully when I insist on being part of meeting with a doctor or getting information about medical concerns for the kids. 
My 15 y/o daughter was not feeling well over the weekend - sore throat, cough, not able to sleep.  while she was at my house, I wound up taking her to the ER because the urgent care clinics were closed on the fourth.  When we were at the ER, she said she didn't want me to come back with here when her room as ready.  This line of thinking (I don't want my dad to be present because I want to be independent) has come up on more than one occasion.  The only problem that I have is that it is not fairly applied between both parents - if her mom was there, my BPDx would for sure be there with her in the room.  When the nurse came to take her back, she gave me this strange look like "why is this parent not coming back - this is really weird - and are you OK with us giving her care if you are not there?"  of course I could have said to my daughter "I don't really care what you want me to do, I'm coming back there anyway".  I have done this in the past and of course, if my BPDx is there (or not there), it amps up the tension to eleven and my daughter is upset with only one person, and that is me. 

She got home on the 4th, was moderately feeling better that night (wanted to go see the fireworks because her boyfriend was going to be there).  Got her prescriptions filled on Tuesday and was taking it easy and trying to catch up some much needed sleep.  Around 8:00 or so last night, got a message from BPDx saying "(daughter) wants to come to my house to recover.  Can I come and pick her up?"  I go in to daughter's room and she's telling me "I'm so sick and I just want to go "home" (was the words she used).  In the mean time, BPDx is already on her way over to pick her up.  I vented a little bit and shared with her how I felt about it - my feelings were hurt, why can't you come and talk to me - I would do everything in my power to make you feel better.  I was crushed - I've been through this so many times, i was very much ready to throw in the towel at that moment. 
This leaving me out of medical issues, concerns, next steps is behavior that seems to be normalized for her - it doesn't seem to register with my daughter  that this odd or not right, and I try to keep things in perspective - she's 15 - center of her own universe - she's only worried about her immediate needs.  At the bottom of all of this is fear - fear that I am going to lose her.  My middle son decided to live with his mom at 15 and it was a colossal train wreck.  He's 19 now and we are slowing trying to put things back together betwenn him and I. 

[Penny Lane]

My husband's ex also works hard to shut him out of medical appointments! Not as successfully though.

It seems that you're between a rock and a hard place. Either you insist on going in with her (and make her mad) or you don't go in (and miss out on taking care of your child).

Of course that catch 22 is exactly what the PD wants.

Either way is a reasonable decision; you can't really go right, which means you can't really go wrong.

When I feel stuck like this, I go back to something my therapist said. You can't change the ex so you focus on making the kids resilient. In this case that means arming your daughter with the tools she needs to make good medical decisions for herself.

Talk about the decisions you make and why. Talk about how insurance works. When to go to the ER, why annual checkups are important. Model good health behavior. And so on.

This isn't really a solution to the problem, but it makes the problem less of a problem. If that makes sense. And it's certainly not satisfying - the PD gets the "victory."

But the real victory is having healthy, happy kids that grow up into healthy, happy adults, right? And you can work toward that.

I'm sorry you're dealing with this. It's so heartbreaking and it's hard to have no solutions to this major problem.

[Poison Ivy]

I can understand why a 15 year old would not want their parent of a different sex in the room during an emergency department visit. I am a woman, as are my two children, and I think they were more likely when they were teenagers to accept me being present during medical appointments than they were to accept their father. But that said, the default was that no parent be in the room during the exam itself.