Useless Parents.

"Sir, sir, please help, it's urgent" begged Andy. The waiting room was full, but so far all I'd seen was kids with sniffly noses and scratchy throat. Andy seemed genuinely worried so I motioned for him to come to the front of the queue.

Andy strode into my office and stood hovering over me as I sat at my desk. "You can sit down Andy" I said. "I can't sir, I'm too worked up, I'm friggin scared sir." "It's ok Andy. Sit down and tell me what's wrong." Andy sat down and began to tell his story.

"It's my eyes sir, I keep seeing things" Andy explained. My ears perked up at this. This was a far cry from the usual complaints. "What exactly are you seeing? Describe as accurately as you can" I replied.

Andy's symptoms had began about a month ago. He started seeing jagged lines at the edge of his vision. At the start he only noticed the lines a couple of times a day, but now he was constantly seeing lines on the edge of his vision. There was no pain, and his vision was otherwise unimpaired. I asked the usual questions like: How often, How long, What makes it worse/better etc. But the biggest shock was still to come.

"Have you ever had problems with your eyes before? Problems of any kind?" asked. Andy seemed surprised by my question "Of course I have. I spent five days in an eye hospital in the states getting all sorts of things done. But you know this. Mum's told you before." It was my turn to be surprised "Ah, sorry Andy, but your mother has never said anything about this at all." I then produced his medical records to show him that his mother had never informed us of her son's medical history regarding the eyes.

Andy was taken to the local emergency eye hospital where he spent the next 16 hours getting every examination possible. The doctor eventually sent Andy and I home. He said there was no danger to Andy's vision, but he said he urgently wanted a copy of the records from when Andy had five days of testing at an American hospital.

"Hello, is the Andy's mum?" I asked. "Yes, how can I help" came the reply. "I'm calling about Andy, I'm the nurse who took him to the eye hospital. We urgently need his medical records, or reports, anything you have" I said. I then spent the next ten minutes explaining everything the eye doctor had told me. "All right, I'll see what I can do" said Andy's mum. The line went dead.

Two weeks later and nothing. No medical notes, no emails, no contact at all with Andy's parents. Andy was becoming angrier every day with his family. After receiving no reply to my emails I phoned Andy's mum for the tenth time and finally got through. "I've contacted the doctor and they'll fax the records through" explained Andy's mum after I'd politely berated her for doing nothing. "How long ago did you fax them" I asked. There was a pause, "Ah, an hour ago" again, another pause, "Ah, what's the fax number by the way." I hung up the phone.

Andy's mum was a liar and not dong a thing to help her son.

I eventually tracked down the records a got a copy sent from the American hospital and sent then to the eye hospital here in Europe. As soon as the doctor here got the report he requested to see Andy that same day.

Thankfully Andy's vision is going to be ok, although he will probably always see these lines.

No thanks have to go to Andy's mum.