Dylan's Birth

When Dylan emerged, he had these very large tags on his ears. I had never before seen that on a child.


He was crying, which was a good sign. After all a healthy baby should cry right?


The pediatric nurse took Dylan and started working on him. I asked her what the ear tags were, and she did not know. She asked me if I wanted a doctor to come down to take a look at him.


Of course I do, I responded. She called someone and five minutes later staggered in some 1st or 2nd year resident looking like he just woke up. He took one look at Dylan and yelled at the nurse, "This is what you called me in here for?".


It seems Prince Charming MD hadn't yet gotten his beauty rest. I wanted to punch him in the face right then and there. This was my son he was talking about. Something wasn't right, so damn right we were going to wake your ass up and make you do your job.


He did a perfunctory exam and pronounced that nothing was wrong with him and the resident shuffled off to go back to sleep.


This was my first lesson in the fact that medical residents know absolutely nothing and you should never listen to them. This is when I finally began to learn something, residents are not real doctors, they are still students in the apprenticeship phase of their education. Relying on a resident is like hiring a law student to defend you on a murder conviction. You have to be nuts to do that.


The thoughts running through my mind at this point were that, OK, Dylan had a weird ear thing but that's all it was. He was perfectly normal otherwise. Just like you hear about kids born with tails or sixth fingers. It was just one of those weird things that would never really affect his life. Some plastic surgery when he got older and he would be fine just like any other kid.


I had no idea what was coming.....