I think this was her second or third set of shots and the initial ones were done at the Blu Bird Dis-Chem and possibly another one at our GP’s rooms. A couple factors led Gina to rather take Faith to the Norwood Mall Dis-Chem even though we were that thrilled with the nurse’s manner when we were last there with Aaron a while ago. It turned out to be a mistake taking Faith there for her shots. I came home the other day and was changing Faith’s nappy when I saw this on her thigh:
Not only did she have a huge red mark on her thigh at least as big as a R5 coin (Update: Gina thinks it was at least as big as 2 coins), she also had what felt like a solid mass under her skin. Her other thigh just had a needle mark with a little inflammation around it like you would expect. Of course I freaked out a bit. Gina said that when the nurse gave her the injection in this thigh she didn’t keep Faith’s thigh still and she moved during the injection. That just struck me as crazy – surely you keep the baby’s limb still too?
Gina took Faith to our GP the next day and he immediately sent them to the Linksfield Clinic for an ultrasound to check if the mass wasn’t an abscess that needed to be drained (I was at my office when I heard this – another little freak-out). The staff at the radiology department there squeezed Gina and Faith in and two hours later she found out it was more of bruise. Gina then went back to the nurse and confronted her about this. Her response was apparently a half-hearted apology and a suggestion that we put some Arnica oil on the inflammation!
That just blows my mind. She is clearly an experienced nurse and, unless I am missing something, she made a mistake that could have been very bad for our baby and she didn’t care enough to give a sincere apology or even ask to take a look for herself. She just didn’t seem to be interested. I am glad I wasn’t there. This sort of attitude really pisses me off. I don’t know what could have gone wrong if she had really messed up but this seemed to be bad enough. We’ve learned our lesson with this nurse, for sure.
What do you think?