A Cold Sore!

This past weekend was a bit manic for my husband and I, but yesterday topped it all off.

On Saturday my darling hubby took his truck to Orlando to get fixed, he didn't get home until late and half way back the truck was worse than ever. So the truck is stuck in our garage and we're operating with only the car.

So my darling husband is doing the school run this week on his way to and from work. he hadn't been at the office long before he got a phone call from the school. One of the boys had been pulled from class because he had a cold sore. Rob explained the transport situation and asked if there was a work around. The school then called back an hour later to say that this same boy was in the office and would not be able to go back to class until he had been cleared by a doctor as not being contagious to the other students. This was a first for both my husband and I. Neither of us had ever heard of a cold sore keeping a child out of school.

However this was not as straight forward as just taking our boy to a doctor. As host parents we are not legal guardians. The boys are not covered on our health insurance, they are foreign students who have to have their own insurance. Of course being minors their parents have all their information and didn't send any copies with them. So Rob got stuck in the school office waiting for mom to fax over copies of health insurance documents and a letter authorising us to agree to medical treatment.

Then there is the ordeal of getting the medical treatment. None of the walk-in clinics take the Bahamian health insurance, so we have to pay for the treatment up front. Several telephone calls to the Bahamas later we get checked in at an Urgent Care center. Even the staff at the Urgent Care center are not sure how some of the paperwork should be completed. An hour later we finally get taken through to a consultation room where more medical history, and basic checks are done. We are moved to another consultation room and wait for another 10 minutes before we see a doctor. He takes one look and tells us that it is indeed a cold sore, offers a prescription and disappears for another 10 minutes. We are then sent back to the reception area to wait for the prescription and letter for the school. Another telephone call to mom and the decision is made to purchase an over the counter cold sore ointment rather than paying for two prescriptions that won't make recovery any quicker.

So my darling husband looses more than half a day at work, the boy looses a day of school and last baseball practice before today's home game, and mom in the Bahamas is out by $140 all for a letter from a doctor that says it is safe to go to school with a cold sore.

After all that my wonderful husband and I looked at each other and said the same thing, "that's another reason to homeschool!"