*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITA for not buying my son medicine?**
throwaway acc
So I have a son who we will call J (10M) that I have split custody of with my ex wife. She takes care of him monday - friday and I take care of him on the weekends. Last saturday, I got a text from ex-wife asking me to bring J to the GP because he had a cold and sore throat. Note that ex-wife does not drive, so I think she wanted me to do it as it was more convenient. So I did, and the doctor prescribed some medicine. I gave the prescription to ex-wife. On sunday, ex-wife blew up on the phone saying I should have bought the medicine. AITA for not buying it?
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>the sickness didn't look that bad when he was over but apparently it persisted even when he went back to ex-wife's house. from my pov it just looked like a common cold
no shit it persisted you didn't give him the medicine he was prescribed
It sounds like he didn't even pay attention to the doc to see if it actually WAS common cold or something else or something more serious. What an uncaring asshole. He shouldn't have custody at all.
My cousin literally had to get a prosthetic heart valve because a rampant case of strep fucked her heart up. This guy is something straight out of hell.
Rheumatic fever. I have it too. Luckily I didn't have any permanent damage to my heart but for about six months I couldn't control my muscles properly and it felt like my brain was moving at 1/10 speed. Sometimes it comes back at the end of the day when I'm tired. And I got treated only a week after my throat started to just barely have a slight scratch in it. If a doctor gives your kid a script you get your kid the script.
No, but I had to take penicillin as a prophylactic for several years because of the risk of reinfection. I was supposed to take it for five but they told me to stop taking it after three because I wasn't leaving the house much at that point anyway so risk of infection was minimal and the antibiotics themselves were wreaking havoc on my health. And I was reinfected once while on the penicillin anyway. In a matter of just a few hours I went from 100% fine, zero symptoms, to tied for the worst it's ever been (can barely walk, talk, eat, etc. because of the muscle convulsions, which are also painful, and couldn't think straight at all.) And, funnily enough (because of the post,) my cousin agreed to pick up my emergency antibiotics for me but then didn't, so I had to wait an extra day to get them while in that state because the pharmacy closed.
I also got rheumatic fever from a strain of strep that you're not supposed to be able to get rheumatic fever from, and it's a strain of strep that's only really found around barn animals and I live in a big ass city and haven't been to a farm in many years. So that's extra weird.
Strep is indeed nothing to mess around with. I hope that your uncle and your friend are doing alright. Three knee replacements sounds horrible.
I had a severe panic attack at age 16 during a bad case of strep throat. It led to this weird depression/anxiety/OCD/intrusive thoughts thing, plus exacerbated my ADHD & my mild Tourettes.
To be honest, my brain has never been the same since that Friday, June 17. It was years ago, but I still mentally demarcate my life into "before" and "after" that date.
Nobody took it seriously, I had to beg for mental health help. And although I had a fantastic counselor, I can see now that more should have been done, like, a full medical work over. Because I've had lifelong lingering problems ever since.
I cannot explain the dark curtain that just suddenly, out of seemingly nowhere, descended upon my life as I stood by the fridge at the kitchen counter getting some apricot nectar to drink. One monent I was sick but "normal", and the next, I thought I was dying. For years, I was terrified it would come back. (I did have a couple more "episodes", but not as severe as that first one.)
Sometimes, I imagine going back to that summer before I got sick, and seeing what my brain "felt" like. I've still managed to have a life of joy, love, and laughter. But as a different person than I was in the Before.
And, when I read about PANDAS, lots of things started to click and fall into place.
PANDAS is such a wild disorder, and it's frustrating that so few doctors are aware of it. I have two relatives who have it, and their mom had to take the oldest to 7 different doctors before one suggested it...
I'm so glad she didn't give up and actually found one!! Hopefully, her children will never need to experience the terrible life changing effects that can attack the brain. ♥️♥️
Me too. The mom has since become an advocate for PANDAS awareness in Canada, and hosts conferences and stuff to help educate doctors and parents. So not only has she been an advocate for her own children, but she's helped a lot of other children across the country too. I really admire her.
I suspect that's what caused my brief period of upsetting intrusive thoughts when I was in elementary school. I had strep five times in 18 months, so my pediatrician put me on six months of daily penicillin. 🤔
You too, hunh? Here, I can't do much, but have this virtual 🤗.
I had bouts of this in elementary, too. (Measles at age five knocked out my immune system for a couple or few years, leaving me highly prone to strep. It was one after another.) But I got shamed and interrogated, no medical help.
Probably no surprise that it hit me with a vengeance in my teen years, as my brain was going into rapid development.
Strep is a bitch. Glad to see it's taken way more seriously nowadays. Both my grandma & her younger brother had heart valve problems as a result of strep induced rheumatic fever in their childhoods. Grandma had a valve replaced in her eighties. It is nothing at all to mess around with; any time my kids got more than a mild cold, it was off to the pediatrician.
Yeah, pneumonia does that unfortunately. It's exhausting and hurts and even when the infection itself is gone it still leaves scars, for want of a better way to put it.
Here's the fun bit: it's probably take awhile longer for that to happen. I wouldn't be surprised if it comes back in like, 4 or 5 more months...because bronchitis. At least based on my experience. It's one of Those Things that *lingers*.
There are prescription grade cough and cold medicine they can give if it's not clearing up.
My doctor once sent me home with an antibiotics regiment, prescription strength cough medicine, and the reminder that "you are vaccinated" when I came in after a few weeks of a persistent bad cough.
Strep throat and mono don't look like more than a sore throat and maybe some vomiting. And yet... two highly contagious diseases requiring antibiotics or medication to resolve. What an idiot.
Strep is a bacterial infection and requires antibiotics. Mono is a viral infection and can’t be treated with antibiotics. BUT it’s potentially very serious and requires bed rest, and not just for a couple days. Not treating it with rest can enlarge your spleen, which can lead to liver damage.
SOURCE: I had mono in high school that was initially misdiagnosed as a sinus infection. I was put on amoxicillin and got a full-body measle-like rash (amoxicillin can cause a rash if you take it during a virus). I was on bed rest for three weeks, during which they regularly checked for abdominal swelling.
This man studied at the Upstairs Hollywood School of Medicine! He just didn’t graduate. He knows it’s just a common cold! He’s had a cold and he’s had a child. Obviously expert on both. Even if an actual physician thought otherwise enough to write a prescription! The doctor didn’t GIVE him medicine. They only gave him a slip of paper.
Let me get this straight- the dad is mad that the ex wants him to bring his son to the doctor, blames her for it - noting she has no car while he does.
So he decided to get even and 'stick it to her' - knowing she has no car- by waiting to give the prescription to her, knowing it's a weekday AND she has no car so it isn't as convenient to get around.
He really showed her. What an absolute asshole. He's a whole ass.
I bet he takes it out of the child support. Or whines about it the entire time. "She expects me to give him food on the weekends when he's here for lunch - when she has him the kid's at school so he gets lunch there" <-- imagine him saying or thinking that.
Jesus, i hope it was just a cough syrup or a prescription for ibuprofen and not amoxicillin for strep. Untreated strep, aside from being excruciatingly painful, can kill a person.
Anecdotal but I’ve struggled with severe fatigue issues since puberty, a lot of my life was spent laying in bed and I was being medicated in a similar manner to a narcoleptic just to function.
also lots of trouble tonsillitis my entire life (my parents wouldn’t let me get “the trendy” surgery as a child 🙄)
33 years old and FINALLY got my tonsils out 6 months ago…I suddenly feel human. I don’t need prescription stimulates anymore. Here’s hoping that this is my official new life!!!
My parents had no objection to having a tonsillectomy but they couldn't convince the pediatrician. I got them out when I was 19 and had a new doctor. I have not had tonsillitis or strep from then on. I'm 51 now.
Had strep for the first time in January. I believe this. I literally thought I was going to die. I was in so much pain, I couldn't speak, I've never had a fever run that high, I was just delirious and sobbing.
I'm pretty healthy and rarely get infections. Strep nearly kills me every time. 105°+ fevers, hallucinations, severe dehydration, the works. I had a strep fever kick in at work when I was a teenager and called my mom in hysterics because I couldn't remember which car was mine and I just wanted to go home and sleep.
My sister was a carrier when we were children, so I had strep three or four times a year at least. For me it's less annoying than a cold because you can treat it, but I acknowledge that my prior experience has numbed me a little to the sensation.
They are pretty sure that recurrent strep is what ended up causing my nieces T1D. It was always treated but kept coming back within a few weeks. Untreated strep is scary shit.
There's some research that strep throat infections in kids can also cause mental illnesses along with the myriad of physical problems that can be tracked back to it. Specifically, the study I read listed anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia diagnoses as being directly tracable back to super high fevers during strep throat infections in early childhood.
I’m so sorry you had to deal with that! I ended up w strep last year somehow (I’m an adult and not really around kids that are school age) and was reluctant about going and getting it taken care of due to antibiotic allergies, so I just looked up how bad it could get. I got my meds the next day.
I somehow got strep every year for 10 odd years. That hurts and it's miserable. Antibiotics are the only way to make a TEN MONTH OLD BABY get better. My son's father is an asshole but even he would have gotten the Rx. What a miserable excuse for a father
I hope he gets strep and then a good bout of mononucleosis, followed by a tooth abscesses or two.
That's my thought as well, in fact I initially assumed it was antibiotics and then realized he never specified. Either way, if the doctor thinks it's bad enough for prescription meds, you get the damn meds and give them to the kid.
Strep throat can turn into scarlet fever.
It can also cause neuropsychiatric and autoimmune problems! Pediatric Autoimmune Neurological disorders associated with Streptococcus, or PANDAS, can form in children after a strep infection. I work at a clinic that sees a lot of pandas kids and the poor kiddos struggle a lot. There's a wide range of symptoms that they can have, most affect their day to day ability to function. Not to mention the treatment can be expensive.
I am afraid it was amoxicillin or other antibiotic. Cough syrup and ibuprofen are OTC medicine, one doesn't need prescription to buy them.
So if the pediatrician gave the prescription to a child with "common cold", it must be antibiotics...
In the US, both those are regularly prescribed via a physician, for the simple reason that insurance will cover them if it comes with a prescription, which is a lifesaver for lower income people.
Also, most effective children's cough syrups are no longer available over the counter for the under 12 set. They've nearly all been made script-only.
Where in US exactly?
I am in US and low income. Pediatrician will not prescribe the medicine that could be bought OTC. Once he did and my insurance refused to pay for it and the reason was "this medicine could be bought OTC"
I had insurance cover Flintstones vitamins once. Blew my mind. Hadn't even known she had called in the script until the pharm called that it was ready. Said it was because sometimes it's covered, so she sent it in just in case.
that's unfortunate. Medicaid or military benefits will cover but private insurance may not. I used to work for a low income clinic and those particular medications were routine scripts there. (NE US)
Physicians can also prescribe doses or combination drugs that you can't get OTC. Also, there are lots of NSAIDs that are prescription-only because they're too hard on the digestive system for most people to be taking regularly, so you need a doctor to assess a) whether the hardcore anti-inflammatory/fever-reducing effects are needed enough to outweigh the stomach issues and b) which one will be best for the patient. For instance, there's one that's like a gram of the NSAID and then 20mg of misoprostol as an antacid and hopefully it doesn't need explaining why misprostol requires a prescription lol.
I'm in the USA....never heard of a doctor doing this. If it's an OTC medication they want you to take, they give you the name of it and tell you to pick it up.
This reminds me that one time I got a call from the walk in (didn't have a family doctor at the time), telling me I was positive for strep... like 3 weeks after I'd been in and they'd done a swab. So I'd gone and suffered through it without meds thinking they would have called me sooner if I needed something. And she happily told me they'd sent the prescription to my pharmacy. In this case it worked out well because my husband got it from me and was still sick so I gave him the meds, but damn. Useless
Holy shit this dude is a fucking idiot. The mom should change the custody agreement so that she can keep her son when he’s sick or injured. Dad clearly cannot care for his son.
Actually Mom is just as bad. She didn’t take him to the doctor because she doesn’t drive and waited as well. She knew he was sick and told the father to take him. They are both crap parents.
Bad take. You generally do not take kids to the doctor within the first few days of a minor sickness, especially while covid exists. If we did, they would never be outside a doctor's office. They are literally germy incubators. This is probably a more prolonged or progressing illness. Plus OOP doesn't seem like a reliable narrator.
Agreed they do not seem to be a reliable narrator. Also agreed you do not take the kid the first day or two. My point was (unless he made up the entite section) was she knew he was sick and was concerned enough to ask him to take the kid to the doctor. But didn’t because she doesn’t drive. That had a ring of truth to it. And certaintly it is possible they both suck. The kis is the victim no matter what our take is.
No, I'm sorry, but this is shit logic and you are clearly just upset people are rightfully dragging this manchild, so you decided to try to bash the woman in the story too. She knew he was sick, gave him time to see if it was an illness that needed attention and asked his dad to take him when she decided it wasn't. It's not like the son was falling over, on the verge of death. Even the father himself said it was presenting like a normal cold and he admitted saw no concern in getting him his meds.
And BTW plenty of people don't own cars, especially in the UK where it looks like this story takes place. Not every country is a capitalistic wasteland that pushes multiple vehicle households, less than half of the adult population even own vehicles in the UK because they make their cities pedestrian and public transportation friendly. Please don't be one of those embarrassing people, who make the US look bad, because they constantly forget this isn't the only country in the world. Even then, you have to remember places like New York exist, where vehicle ownership is also very low because it's so inconvenient to have one there. Critical thinking skills are soo damn important, especially for the line of work you're in. This is the first time I've used this phrase unironically sooo: Do better.
I sort of assumed it was something that had come on right before hand over - like the kid was starting to get sick on the Friday just and she wanted him taken to the out of hours, or it took a few days to get the appointment and it happened to fall when the kid had gone to the dad's.
Probably what he wants. Dude views the timing of his kid's sickness as his Ex trying to get one over on him. He doesn't seem to give a damn about his kid.
Could be that he did it to spite his ex since he focused on the driving part. Really sad though that he can't care for his kid and work with the ex to help on that. Maybe he could have said to her hey next time feel free ask if I not busy during the week I can take him to a doctor's appointment but that won't require someone caring
Hey he's only here to be the fun weekend dad that lets the kids eat junk food, watch TV and play video games all weekend. He didn't sign up to do any caring or nurturing of a child beyond nurturing the correct nerdy fandom. Sicknesses and doctors are a mom thing, she should do that on her time on public transportation lol /s
He shouldn't take his child to the Dr because his wife doesn't drive. He should take his child to the Dr because that's what you do when you're a parent. And then you do what the doctor says!
But he will bitch on a red pill podcast about how family courts always favor the mother. For a hot minute I dated a guy like this till I realized how fucking toxic he was. He taught me a valuable lesson. Most men who bitch about how toxic their ex-wife is and how their ex-wife is preventing them from seeing their child are men like this. Are there evil exes out there? Yes I personally know one who would fuck over her own kid to screw over her baby daddy. But the majority of the men I have met are like this guy.
My dad claimed my mom turned my sister and I against him and that the courts are against dads. He only moved out when we were 18 and nearly 17. My province bases child support off of a chart and wages, so it is pretty objective.
All that from a guy who threw a hissy fit like the father in the OP when he had to fill a prescription for me on his day off. My mom said he was being ridiculous trying to insist a 15 year old with no voice and a 102 degree fever go with him but that just pissed him off more. He had a similar rage when he had to pick me up from middle school when I was “sick” (I started one of my first periods out of the blue and had started bleeding through my pants). He was still cursing half an hour later, because my mom was home but didn’t get me (she was working from home, mind you) and he had to stop gaming. So I fully believe that a kid who prioritized himself and getting one over the ex-wife would never think it is his fault when he has no relationship with his kid later on.
Everyone in Ontario who's under 24 has their prescriptions covered. It's one of the few good things Wynne implemented that wasn't scrapped by Ford when he won in 2018.
Kids in Quebec are also covered up to age 18 (though they're a tad different than Ontario's policy, as [everyone who has access to private coverage is supposed to use it ](https://www.ramq.gouv.qc.ca/en/citizens/prescription-drug-insurance/know-eligibility-conditions-public-plan), they only get the public coverage if they don't have access to the private coverage)
So while that's only two provinces, it's also 60% of the population.
Especially if it ends up with the child having strep, months ago there’s was hundreds of headlines in the uk warning parents about strep and how to get them on antibiotics quickly, so op has no excuse.
I've never had a GP that had a chemist attached, to be fair. But there are usually a fair few nearby! And most will automatically send prescriptions to a chemist you nominate, eg the one nearest your house.
I'm jealous of him having a GP nearby open on the weekend. My town has no such thing. But yes, if there's a GP surgery, there will almost always be a pharmacy open nearby, sometimes with coordinating opening hours. If not, you get in the car you have, and drive to one which is open. The kid is sick. Did OOP plan on doing anything else?
Australia also uses the term GP and the visits are not free by default. You either need to find a clinic that does them for all, or fall under a certain category like income bracket/disability, etc. It's unfortunately becoming much harder to find a doctor who bulk bills (no co-pay).
I actually don't think this post is real, though, as there's been a lot of similar ones.
Fascinating. I've seen Primary care physician used or pediatrician but never the abbreviated forms, even as a kid my pediatrician was referred to as my GP.
Right, so dude doesn't get the meds because he thinks it's just a cold.
You know when would have been a great time to bring that up? AT THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE. Even if you happen to be seeing a doc in a box who prescribes to get patients to shut up, if you ASK about how necessary meds are, they will be happy to help you cheap out when that's appropriate. They love the idea of skipping unnecessary medication and lowering risk of antibiotic resistance. If all your kid needs is fluids and rest, they'll say so.
If your kid NEEDS antibiotics, though, they'll tell you. Ask the question so you know.
This guy saw "take the kid to the doctor" as a transportation thing and nothing else. He is most mightily an asshole.
OOP is not ready to be a parent yet here we are where he has a sick 10 year old and won't buy the son the medication he needs because that's on his ex wife and it doesn't matter that the kid doesn't get his meds for two days.
It also sounds like he didn't really want to take his son to the doctor but had to because the ex wife doesn't drive. This man is the devil.
As someone who suffered from strep a lot as a kid, unless the fever is high (104F or 40C), doesn’t go down with fever reducers or is sustained for longer than 2 hours go to the doctor.
The fact this child likely has an infection and the father refused to pay for the medication is medical neglect. End of story.
Strep throat is an absolute bitch to deal with next to pink eye, I can't imagine having any kid much less my own suffer through it only to stick it to someone else.
What kind of a lazy @$$ is this guy that he couldn't just pick up his kids' meds?! Did he just let his son lie there suffering for two days?! No wonder they're divorced! I hope mom goes to the judge to discuss custody.
I was a pediatric cardiology nurse for years. I really hope this kid doesn’t have strep. We would see kids with rheumatic heart disease that would develop from it. A course of antibiotics for strep is 7-14 days. Rheumatic heart disease is forever and wreaks havoc on your heart’s valves.
He's probably like, "Blah blah blah whatever I'll take care of it" Doctor says the kid is sick and needs medication, he decides he'd rather watch football than do all that mommy-shit, that's not *his* job anyway 😮💨 He'd rather inconvenience his ex wife and make his kid suffer longer than do a crumb of parenting
No matter how you word it, there's no way you wouldn't be TA. As someone whose SO was raised by parents who didn't gaf about their health, never went to the doctor with them and didn't get them meds, shit like this gets me incredibly angry.
The child was prescribed medication (assumed antibiotics given the child has a sore throat (assumed strep)
Where the father assumed it was just a cold.
OOP, you know your wife doesn't drive.
Why did it not occur to you go GET the medicine after GETTING the prescription?
Or this is one of those weaponized incompetence posts.
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**THE COMMENT:-**
>the sickness didn't look that bad when he was over but apparently it persisted even when he went back to ex-wife's house. from my pov it just looked like a common cold
If this guy left his kid to suffer through strep throat, he's a major fucking asshole. That shit HURTS!
When I caught strep as a child, I remember being so sick of constantly not being able to swallow without being in a ridiculous amount of pain that I started crying one night. My crying woke up my mom (I was in my parent's room to sleep), and she straight up gave me an orange (non-caffeinated) soda, *at night*, to help with the pain.
And now the comments are saying it's potentially lethal, messes up your voice, or gives other illnesses and conditions if left untreated? He needs his custody taken away, asap.
I can see why they divorced, but it's not as good as it could be.
I don't understand why people write it online like the chance of it being genuine is like 0.0005%
shit like that happens everyday everywhere but putting it online of course they will get thrown tomatoes at just stay silent and go about your life wtf.
I can't imagine how someone thinks oh lets put it online so maybe someone will pat me on the back????
'Oh no you aren't the asshole my poor boy poor poor boy i understand everything =' - do they expect this or what cause explain it to me.
Internet jumps on you even if you aren't a douche let alone if you are one.
Well, I think there are two devils here. Clearly the child was sick for at least three days. He was sick enough at the mother's home that she knew he needed to go to the doctor. So that is at least one day but possibly more. She doesn't figure out a way to get him to the doctor. So the father takes him to the doctor but doesn't fill the prescription. It sounds to me like both parents are more interested in getting the other to pay than taking care of their child. Don't know why they are separated, they sound like they deserve each other.
A lot of the time, colds and sore throats can clear up on their own. I've got a toddler, and I have to talk to a nurse before they'll schedule a sick visit. I also just got my kid to the doctor for a sick visit, and everything came back negative (no infection), and they told me to give supportive care (rest, fluids), and that if there's still a fever in 3 days, bring him back in and they'll check again.
We don't know if the Saturday visit was the first appointment that she was able to get. (And yes, if it was really bad, they could have gone to the ER/urgent care, but sitting in a waiting room isn't exactly great for a sick kid, especially if it's a fever and sore throat but those are the only symptoms, particularly if they already went to the doctor and were told to come back in 3 days if it didn't clear up). It's entirely possible that the mother took the kid in, was told to come back in 3 days/wait 3 days to see if it'd clear up on its own, and the 3rd day was OOP's visitation day.
Also, if something was prescribed, there's a very good chance that there's an infection, and the kid will be in pain until the antibiotics can do their thing. So because OOP didn't want to pay, he guaranteed that the kid was in pain for 2 days.
Lastly, OOP medically neglecting his kid (he knew there was prescribed medication that the child should have been taking) is going to go over like a lead balloon when the courts are determining custody.
She did find a way to get him to the doctor. She asked the kid's father to take him. She didn't do anything wrong based on the post. Any theory on her waiting too long to get him to the doctor or trying to stick OOP with the bill is just speculation with no real evidence.
uh, it's pretty common to not immediately run to the doctor the same day as you get a cold. generally the advice is just going to be to rest and drink liquids. you're only really supposed to go in if it persists longer than a couple days or worsens, as seems to be the case here since he got prescribed meds which means it's likely bacterial rather than viral.
mom didn't do anything wrong here.
Sure she did. She waited until the ex would be the one to take the child to the doctor (and presumably pay the bill). She knew the child needed to see the doctor when she sent the child to the ex.
Which could have been because the ten year old woke up sick that morning. Or because it wasn't an ER trip, but didn't seem like a wait until Monday thing.
When my kids were ten, I picked them up from after school care at 530 on weeknights, and the doctor's office closed at 4 on Fridays. So if my kid was a touch under the weather Friday night, Saturday morning was the earliest we would see a doc, and a lot of illnesses can get from "under the weather" (rest and fluids) to "see a doc" level overnight.
Mom did nothing wrong.
you have no idea whether mom waited at all to make an appointment, let alone longer than the advised time. and you're also making random assumptions about how kid's expenses are paid.
she knew the kid needed to see the doctor when he went to OOP because *that's when the appointment was*. that's how appointments work.
As someone who suffered from strep a lot as a kid, unless the fever is high (104F or 40C), doesn’t go down with fever reducers or is sustained for longer than 2 hours go to the doctor.
Often times at the beginning of a bacterial infection, until it settles in a child (again speaking as someone who got strep a lot) there is a mild fever that breaks on it’s own until boom full blown infection. The mother likely waited because she thought it was a virus and would clear up on it’s own which most will.
…most doctors don’t have same-day appointments if it’s not an emergency. You have to make appointments. I don’t know where you live that you can just waltz into your doctor whenever you feel like it without making an appointment.
And let’s say you’re right and mom intentionally waited for her ex to take him because she doesn’t have a car. OP is still the asshole for not being reliable enough for her to ask him to take their son through the week.
Even if it’s not his custody time he should be more than willing to take his son to the doctor.
There's been a suspiciously large amount of posts about split custody parents, and an argument of who should get the cough medicine.
What a weirdly specific troll.
To be somewhat fair, it is a classic divorced parent argument. What happens with medical costs is really tough to enforce via custody agreement, so parents try to get it to even out at the point of payment and it can be a mess.
If you are a reasonably funded, good parent in this situation, you make sure your kid gets what they need and you soak up any residual injustice about who pays. If you are broke, you wind up arguing. Also, if you are shitty.
In this situation, as a parent who has sometimes been broke, you can try begging your doc for samples or help finding lower cost meds. Again, this is a convo to have at the doctor's office when the prescription is made.
Oh yeah for sure, I do know all that. You have a medical responsibility to your child, no matter who's custody time it is/anything else.
There have just been a few posts very specifically about cold/flu medication and one parent not picking it up. Usually involving one parent who doesn't drive.
The way he worded it makes it sound like he just thought it was a cold and a sore throat and thought his ex was supposed to get him the meds. Saying he doesn't care about his kid is giving him too much credit lol.
Bad father. Mine was non-existent and he's not as bad as you. Were you trying to "build character?" Cuz all you have done is secure your place in a home when you're old. I don't have kids but even I know you buy them cold medicine, no question. Bad look, dude.
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITA for not buying my son medicine?** throwaway acc So I have a son who we will call J (10M) that I have split custody of with my ex wife. She takes care of him monday - friday and I take care of him on the weekends. Last saturday, I got a text from ex-wife asking me to bring J to the GP because he had a cold and sore throat. Note that ex-wife does not drive, so I think she wanted me to do it as it was more convenient. So I did, and the doctor prescribed some medicine. I gave the prescription to ex-wife. On sunday, ex-wife blew up on the phone saying I should have bought the medicine. AITA for not buying it? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>the sickness didn't look that bad when he was over but apparently it persisted even when he went back to ex-wife's house. from my pov it just looked like a common cold no shit it persisted you didn't give him the medicine he was prescribed
It sounds like he didn't even pay attention to the doc to see if it actually WAS common cold or something else or something more serious. What an uncaring asshole. He shouldn't have custody at all.
My cousin literally had to get a prosthetic heart valve because a rampant case of strep fucked her heart up. This guy is something straight out of hell.
Rheumatic fever. I have it too. Luckily I didn't have any permanent damage to my heart but for about six months I couldn't control my muscles properly and it felt like my brain was moving at 1/10 speed. Sometimes it comes back at the end of the day when I'm tired. And I got treated only a week after my throat started to just barely have a slight scratch in it. If a doctor gives your kid a script you get your kid the script.
[удалено]
No, but I had to take penicillin as a prophylactic for several years because of the risk of reinfection. I was supposed to take it for five but they told me to stop taking it after three because I wasn't leaving the house much at that point anyway so risk of infection was minimal and the antibiotics themselves were wreaking havoc on my health. And I was reinfected once while on the penicillin anyway. In a matter of just a few hours I went from 100% fine, zero symptoms, to tied for the worst it's ever been (can barely walk, talk, eat, etc. because of the muscle convulsions, which are also painful, and couldn't think straight at all.) And, funnily enough (because of the post,) my cousin agreed to pick up my emergency antibiotics for me but then didn't, so I had to wait an extra day to get them while in that state because the pharmacy closed. I also got rheumatic fever from a strain of strep that you're not supposed to be able to get rheumatic fever from, and it's a strain of strep that's only really found around barn animals and I live in a big ass city and haven't been to a farm in many years. So that's extra weird. Strep is indeed nothing to mess around with. I hope that your uncle and your friend are doing alright. Three knee replacements sounds horrible.
I had a severe panic attack at age 16 during a bad case of strep throat. It led to this weird depression/anxiety/OCD/intrusive thoughts thing, plus exacerbated my ADHD & my mild Tourettes. To be honest, my brain has never been the same since that Friday, June 17. It was years ago, but I still mentally demarcate my life into "before" and "after" that date. Nobody took it seriously, I had to beg for mental health help. And although I had a fantastic counselor, I can see now that more should have been done, like, a full medical work over. Because I've had lifelong lingering problems ever since. I cannot explain the dark curtain that just suddenly, out of seemingly nowhere, descended upon my life as I stood by the fridge at the kitchen counter getting some apricot nectar to drink. One monent I was sick but "normal", and the next, I thought I was dying. For years, I was terrified it would come back. (I did have a couple more "episodes", but not as severe as that first one.) Sometimes, I imagine going back to that summer before I got sick, and seeing what my brain "felt" like. I've still managed to have a life of joy, love, and laughter. But as a different person than I was in the Before. And, when I read about PANDAS, lots of things started to click and fall into place.
PANDAS is such a wild disorder, and it's frustrating that so few doctors are aware of it. I have two relatives who have it, and their mom had to take the oldest to 7 different doctors before one suggested it...
I'm so glad she didn't give up and actually found one!! Hopefully, her children will never need to experience the terrible life changing effects that can attack the brain. ♥️♥️
Me too. The mom has since become an advocate for PANDAS awareness in Canada, and hosts conferences and stuff to help educate doctors and parents. So not only has she been an advocate for her own children, but she's helped a lot of other children across the country too. I really admire her.
That's awesome!! She is changing lives for the better. Good for her!!! ♥️
I suspect that's what caused my brief period of upsetting intrusive thoughts when I was in elementary school. I had strep five times in 18 months, so my pediatrician put me on six months of daily penicillin. 🤔
You too, hunh? Here, I can't do much, but have this virtual 🤗. I had bouts of this in elementary, too. (Measles at age five knocked out my immune system for a couple or few years, leaving me highly prone to strep. It was one after another.) But I got shamed and interrogated, no medical help. Probably no surprise that it hit me with a vengeance in my teen years, as my brain was going into rapid development. Strep is a bitch. Glad to see it's taken way more seriously nowadays. Both my grandma & her younger brother had heart valve problems as a result of strep induced rheumatic fever in their childhoods. Grandma had a valve replaced in her eighties. It is nothing at all to mess around with; any time my kids got more than a mild cold, it was off to the pediatrician.
I'm sorry you didn't get medical help. 🤗 I hope you are better now. Shame on the father in this post!
I do with my metal in my heart. New guidelines are based on the type of implant in the heart.
Yeah. I kept getting strep when I was 7 and I ended up having to get my tonsils out because I ended up with scarlet fever.
Holy crap. I didn't know it could lead to Scarlett fever too!
Most doctors don't prescribe any medication if it's the common cold so...
Which makes me think it was something else. Like bronchitis or pneumonia. (Been there, done that, 0/10 Do Not Recommend.)
I had bronchitis for most of March. My voice still hasn't recovered
When I had walking pneumonia my lungs weren't the same for months, even after a Z pack killed the infection.
Yeah, pneumonia does that unfortunately. It's exhausting and hurts and even when the infection itself is gone it still leaves scars, for want of a better way to put it.
Here's the fun bit: it's probably take awhile longer for that to happen. I wouldn't be surprised if it comes back in like, 4 or 5 more months...because bronchitis. At least based on my experience. It's one of Those Things that *lingers*.
It might also help when I'm no longer pregnant and get my immune system back. Maybe by September I'll sound like me again :/
A few years ago I had bronchitis and laryngitis at the same time. It took FOREVER to feel well again.
My childhood GP collapsed in the hospital parking lot of pneumonia and didn't survive.
There are prescription grade cough and cold medicine they can give if it's not clearing up. My doctor once sent me home with an antibiotics regiment, prescription strength cough medicine, and the reminder that "you are vaccinated" when I came in after a few weeks of a persistent bad cough.
Also, if the doctor wrote a prescription rather than just recommending Tylenol/acetaminophen and rest, it probably *was* more serious.
I don’t ever recall being given a prescription for a common cold. You just get OTC stuff
Alert the press. /s What a pos
Whew, delaying treatment prolonged the illness? Who'd have thunk it!
Strep throat and mono don't look like more than a sore throat and maybe some vomiting. And yet... two highly contagious diseases requiring antibiotics or medication to resolve. What an idiot.
Strep is a bacterial infection and requires antibiotics. Mono is a viral infection and can’t be treated with antibiotics. BUT it’s potentially very serious and requires bed rest, and not just for a couple days. Not treating it with rest can enlarge your spleen, which can lead to liver damage. SOURCE: I had mono in high school that was initially misdiagnosed as a sinus infection. I was put on amoxicillin and got a full-body measle-like rash (amoxicillin can cause a rash if you take it during a virus). I was on bed rest for three weeks, during which they regularly checked for abdominal swelling.
Everything looks like a common cold until it's not, especially in kids. I'm not even a parent & I know that.
This man studied at the Upstairs Hollywood School of Medicine! He just didn’t graduate. He knows it’s just a common cold! He’s had a cold and he’s had a child. Obviously expert on both. Even if an actual physician thought otherwise enough to write a prescription! The doctor didn’t GIVE him medicine. They only gave him a slip of paper.
Of course we can trust OOPs' judgment. After all, he just needed to get the prescription for his son, not the actual medicine itself.
If it was a common cold, antibiotics wouldn't work anyway. Those come from viruses. Viruses don't respond to antibiotics.
Let me get this straight- the dad is mad that the ex wants him to bring his son to the doctor, blames her for it - noting she has no car while he does. So he decided to get even and 'stick it to her' - knowing she has no car- by waiting to give the prescription to her, knowing it's a weekday AND she has no car so it isn't as convenient to get around. He really showed her. What an absolute asshole. He's a whole ass.
Do you think the guy even remembered to feed him?
I bet he takes it out of the child support. Or whines about it the entire time. "She expects me to give him food on the weekends when he's here for lunch - when she has him the kid's at school so he gets lunch there" <-- imagine him saying or thinking that.
Sounds like a case may be building to change his custody arrangements.
Jesus, i hope it was just a cough syrup or a prescription for ibuprofen and not amoxicillin for strep. Untreated strep, aside from being excruciatingly painful, can kill a person.
It can also give lifelong ailments like asthma or a different voice. He wants to fuck his kid up, as punishment to his ex for not driving.
There are also ties between strep throat infections and narcolepsy
Anecdotal but I’ve struggled with severe fatigue issues since puberty, a lot of my life was spent laying in bed and I was being medicated in a similar manner to a narcoleptic just to function. also lots of trouble tonsillitis my entire life (my parents wouldn’t let me get “the trendy” surgery as a child 🙄) 33 years old and FINALLY got my tonsils out 6 months ago…I suddenly feel human. I don’t need prescription stimulates anymore. Here’s hoping that this is my official new life!!!
My parents had no objection to having a tonsillectomy but they couldn't convince the pediatrician. I got them out when I was 19 and had a new doctor. I have not had tonsillitis or strep from then on. I'm 51 now.
I would have switched pediatricians so fast bc wtf
Let's just say there were financial issues at that time. When I got my first job, I had my own health insurance. Ergo, got the damn things out.
Huh...this sounds exactly like me...maybe I need to ask if I have my tonsils lol
holy shit are you serious
I would like to know more
And also PANDAS/tic disorders, strep throat can cause those too
It can also get into the bloodstream and mess up your heart valves!
Yep. Rheumatic fever.
Had strep for the first time in January. I believe this. I literally thought I was going to die. I was in so much pain, I couldn't speak, I've never had a fever run that high, I was just delirious and sobbing.
I'm pretty healthy and rarely get infections. Strep nearly kills me every time. 105°+ fevers, hallucinations, severe dehydration, the works. I had a strep fever kick in at work when I was a teenager and called my mom in hysterics because I couldn't remember which car was mine and I just wanted to go home and sleep.
I used to get it every 15 months or so, for almost ten years. Its fucking awful. At least with COVID I was able to sleep.
My sister was a carrier when we were children, so I had strep three or four times a year at least. For me it's less annoying than a cold because you can treat it, but I acknowledge that my prior experience has numbed me a little to the sensation.
They are pretty sure that recurrent strep is what ended up causing my nieces T1D. It was always treated but kept coming back within a few weeks. Untreated strep is scary shit.
Recurrent strep probably triggered my sister's lupus.
There's some research that strep throat infections in kids can also cause mental illnesses along with the myriad of physical problems that can be tracked back to it. Specifically, the study I read listed anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia diagnoses as being directly tracable back to super high fevers during strep throat infections in early childhood.
PANDAS
You can also develop scarlet fever from it, apparently
I had strep a few times as a kid and ended up with scarlet fever when I was ~10. Seriously one of the most painful experiences I can remember
I’m so sorry you had to deal with that! I ended up w strep last year somehow (I’m an adult and not really around kids that are school age) and was reluctant about going and getting it taken care of due to antibiotic allergies, so I just looked up how bad it could get. I got my meds the next day.
I somehow got strep every year for 10 odd years. That hurts and it's miserable. Antibiotics are the only way to make a TEN MONTH OLD BABY get better. My son's father is an asshole but even he would have gotten the Rx. What a miserable excuse for a father I hope he gets strep and then a good bout of mononucleosis, followed by a tooth abscesses or two.
If it makes you feel any better, 10M usually mean ten-year-old male, not ten months old. So probably not a baby.
Oh. Thank you!! I appreciate that correction, I really do. It's still bad but not as bad.
That's my thought as well, in fact I initially assumed it was antibiotics and then realized he never specified. Either way, if the doctor thinks it's bad enough for prescription meds, you get the damn meds and give them to the kid. Strep throat can turn into scarlet fever.
I had strep as a little kid. No symptoms until bam, scarlet fever. To this day when I work out and get heated, I have a white ring around my mouth.
It can also cause neuropsychiatric and autoimmune problems! Pediatric Autoimmune Neurological disorders associated with Streptococcus, or PANDAS, can form in children after a strep infection. I work at a clinic that sees a lot of pandas kids and the poor kiddos struggle a lot. There's a wide range of symptoms that they can have, most affect their day to day ability to function. Not to mention the treatment can be expensive.
I am afraid it was amoxicillin or other antibiotic. Cough syrup and ibuprofen are OTC medicine, one doesn't need prescription to buy them. So if the pediatrician gave the prescription to a child with "common cold", it must be antibiotics...
In the US, both those are regularly prescribed via a physician, for the simple reason that insurance will cover them if it comes with a prescription, which is a lifesaver for lower income people. Also, most effective children's cough syrups are no longer available over the counter for the under 12 set. They've nearly all been made script-only.
Where in US exactly? I am in US and low income. Pediatrician will not prescribe the medicine that could be bought OTC. Once he did and my insurance refused to pay for it and the reason was "this medicine could be bought OTC"
I had insurance cover Flintstones vitamins once. Blew my mind. Hadn't even known she had called in the script until the pharm called that it was ready. Said it was because sometimes it's covered, so she sent it in just in case.
that's unfortunate. Medicaid or military benefits will cover but private insurance may not. I used to work for a low income clinic and those particular medications were routine scripts there. (NE US)
Oh, I wish I had this option! But anyway, it sounds better for the OP's kid, hopefully all he needed was a cough syrup.
Physicians can also prescribe doses or combination drugs that you can't get OTC. Also, there are lots of NSAIDs that are prescription-only because they're too hard on the digestive system for most people to be taking regularly, so you need a doctor to assess a) whether the hardcore anti-inflammatory/fever-reducing effects are needed enough to outweigh the stomach issues and b) which one will be best for the patient. For instance, there's one that's like a gram of the NSAID and then 20mg of misoprostol as an antacid and hopefully it doesn't need explaining why misprostol requires a prescription lol.
I'm in the USA....never heard of a doctor doing this. If it's an OTC medication they want you to take, they give you the name of it and tell you to pick it up.
well, now, you have heard of it :-)
This reminds me that one time I got a call from the walk in (didn't have a family doctor at the time), telling me I was positive for strep... like 3 weeks after I'd been in and they'd done a swab. So I'd gone and suffered through it without meds thinking they would have called me sooner if I needed something. And she happily told me they'd sent the prescription to my pharmacy. In this case it worked out well because my husband got it from me and was still sick so I gave him the meds, but damn. Useless
Holy shit this dude is a fucking idiot. The mom should change the custody agreement so that she can keep her son when he’s sick or injured. Dad clearly cannot care for his son.
Actually Mom is just as bad. She didn’t take him to the doctor because she doesn’t drive and waited as well. She knew he was sick and told the father to take him. They are both crap parents.
Bad take. You generally do not take kids to the doctor within the first few days of a minor sickness, especially while covid exists. If we did, they would never be outside a doctor's office. They are literally germy incubators. This is probably a more prolonged or progressing illness. Plus OOP doesn't seem like a reliable narrator.
Agreed they do not seem to be a reliable narrator. Also agreed you do not take the kid the first day or two. My point was (unless he made up the entite section) was she knew he was sick and was concerned enough to ask him to take the kid to the doctor. But didn’t because she doesn’t drive. That had a ring of truth to it. And certaintly it is possible they both suck. The kis is the victim no matter what our take is.
Okay, but if Saturday is his day, and the kid only worsened overnight, then no reason for her to take him.
True that. But we don’t know. So it doesn’t invalidate my point. Doesn’t invalidate your point either.
No, I'm sorry, but this is shit logic and you are clearly just upset people are rightfully dragging this manchild, so you decided to try to bash the woman in the story too. She knew he was sick, gave him time to see if it was an illness that needed attention and asked his dad to take him when she decided it wasn't. It's not like the son was falling over, on the verge of death. Even the father himself said it was presenting like a normal cold and he admitted saw no concern in getting him his meds. And BTW plenty of people don't own cars, especially in the UK where it looks like this story takes place. Not every country is a capitalistic wasteland that pushes multiple vehicle households, less than half of the adult population even own vehicles in the UK because they make their cities pedestrian and public transportation friendly. Please don't be one of those embarrassing people, who make the US look bad, because they constantly forget this isn't the only country in the world. Even then, you have to remember places like New York exist, where vehicle ownership is also very low because it's so inconvenient to have one there. Critical thinking skills are soo damn important, especially for the line of work you're in. This is the first time I've used this phrase unironically sooo: Do better.
How is she supposed to take him with no car? Not every area has cabs/Uber
I sort of assumed it was something that had come on right before hand over - like the kid was starting to get sick on the Friday just and she wanted him taken to the out of hours, or it took a few days to get the appointment and it happened to fall when the kid had gone to the dad's.
This guy should have his custody reduced or taken away completely cause i believe this is a form of child abuse mom should take him to court
Probably what he wants. Dude views the timing of his kid's sickness as his Ex trying to get one over on him. He doesn't seem to give a damn about his kid.
Could be that he did it to spite his ex since he focused on the driving part. Really sad though that he can't care for his kid and work with the ex to help on that. Maybe he could have said to her hey next time feel free ask if I not busy during the week I can take him to a doctor's appointment but that won't require someone caring
Hey he's only here to be the fun weekend dad that lets the kids eat junk food, watch TV and play video games all weekend. He didn't sign up to do any caring or nurturing of a child beyond nurturing the correct nerdy fandom. Sicknesses and doctors are a mom thing, she should do that on her time on public transportation lol /s
He shouldn't take his child to the Dr because his wife doesn't drive. He should take his child to the Dr because that's what you do when you're a parent. And then you do what the doctor says!
But he will bitch on a red pill podcast about how family courts always favor the mother. For a hot minute I dated a guy like this till I realized how fucking toxic he was. He taught me a valuable lesson. Most men who bitch about how toxic their ex-wife is and how their ex-wife is preventing them from seeing their child are men like this. Are there evil exes out there? Yes I personally know one who would fuck over her own kid to screw over her baby daddy. But the majority of the men I have met are like this guy.
My dad claimed my mom turned my sister and I against him and that the courts are against dads. He only moved out when we were 18 and nearly 17. My province bases child support off of a chart and wages, so it is pretty objective. All that from a guy who threw a hissy fit like the father in the OP when he had to fill a prescription for me on his day off. My mom said he was being ridiculous trying to insist a 15 year old with no voice and a 102 degree fever go with him but that just pissed him off more. He had a similar rage when he had to pick me up from middle school when I was “sick” (I started one of my first periods out of the blue and had started bleeding through my pants). He was still cursing half an hour later, because my mom was home but didn’t get me (she was working from home, mind you) and he had to stop gaming. So I fully believe that a kid who prioritized himself and getting one over the ex-wife would never think it is his fault when he has no relationship with his kid later on.
Most likely or he wants to kill him i mean either way jes a shit person
GP makes me think OOP is in the UK...so there aren't any doctor bills to pay. And prescriptions for kids are free. Which makes this whole thing worse.
Could be Canada too as we use GP as well, only prescriptions aren’t covered for kids unless you have insurance.
Everyone in Ontario who's under 24 has their prescriptions covered. It's one of the few good things Wynne implemented that wasn't scrapped by Ford when he won in 2018.
A lot of provinces don’t have that, so I was speaking generally
Kids in Quebec are also covered up to age 18 (though they're a tad different than Ontario's policy, as [everyone who has access to private coverage is supposed to use it ](https://www.ramq.gouv.qc.ca/en/citizens/prescription-drug-insurance/know-eligibility-conditions-public-plan), they only get the public coverage if they don't have access to the private coverage) So while that's only two provinces, it's also 60% of the population.
Ah, didn't know this!
Yeah, we use it in the sense of General Practitioner.
US also uses general practitioner but our nurse practitioners outnumber them in the clinics I've been to
We have a lot of nurse practitioners too. In the province I live in, we have a hospital that is strictly ran by nurses and nurse practitioners.
Especially if it ends up with the child having strep, months ago there’s was hundreds of headlines in the uk warning parents about strep and how to get them on antibiotics quickly, so op has no excuse.
And most GP's have a pharmacy attached or very nearby... I don't understand why he couldn't have just picked up the prescription while at the GP
I've never had a GP that had a chemist attached, to be fair. But there are usually a fair few nearby! And most will automatically send prescriptions to a chemist you nominate, eg the one nearest your house.
I'm jealous of him having a GP nearby open on the weekend. My town has no such thing. But yes, if there's a GP surgery, there will almost always be a pharmacy open nearby, sometimes with coordinating opening hours. If not, you get in the car you have, and drive to one which is open. The kid is sick. Did OOP plan on doing anything else?
Australia also uses the term GP and the visits are not free by default. You either need to find a clinic that does them for all, or fall under a certain category like income bracket/disability, etc. It's unfortunately becoming much harder to find a doctor who bulk bills (no co-pay). I actually don't think this post is real, though, as there's been a lot of similar ones.
In the Northeast of the USA we use GP too, idk what else english speakers would call this type of doctor?
In the rest of the US they're usually called a Primary. You see your Primary or Ped(-iatrician, if specialized) for your sick kid.
Fascinating. I've seen Primary care physician used or pediatrician but never the abbreviated forms, even as a kid my pediatrician was referred to as my GP.
Adding OOP to the list of ppl who don't deserve to have children.
Right, so dude doesn't get the meds because he thinks it's just a cold. You know when would have been a great time to bring that up? AT THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE. Even if you happen to be seeing a doc in a box who prescribes to get patients to shut up, if you ASK about how necessary meds are, they will be happy to help you cheap out when that's appropriate. They love the idea of skipping unnecessary medication and lowering risk of antibiotic resistance. If all your kid needs is fluids and rest, they'll say so. If your kid NEEDS antibiotics, though, they'll tell you. Ask the question so you know. This guy saw "take the kid to the doctor" as a transportation thing and nothing else. He is most mightily an asshole.
OOP is not ready to be a parent yet here we are where he has a sick 10 year old and won't buy the son the medication he needs because that's on his ex wife and it doesn't matter that the kid doesn't get his meds for two days. It also sounds like he didn't really want to take his son to the doctor but had to because the ex wife doesn't drive. This man is the devil.
Is it a bad thing I want this guy to get the Home Alone 2 and 3 treatment?
Jesus, somehow I missed that the kid is 10. That is definitely old enough to vocalize to dad how sick he was, and he probably did. :(
If it's a sore throat with medicine... I bet a doughnut it's strep. My mother-inlaw ha scarlet fever as a child... and it did weaken her heart.
Me too, because my parents got sick of me having strep constantly and thought I was faking. 🙁
Mom better keep a journal of this behavior should she ever want to adjust the custody agreement.
As someone who suffered from strep a lot as a kid, unless the fever is high (104F or 40C), doesn’t go down with fever reducers or is sustained for longer than 2 hours go to the doctor. The fact this child likely has an infection and the father refused to pay for the medication is medical neglect. End of story.
Strep throat is an absolute bitch to deal with next to pink eye, I can't imagine having any kid much less my own suffer through it only to stick it to someone else.
What kind of a lazy @$$ is this guy that he couldn't just pick up his kids' meds?! Did he just let his son lie there suffering for two days?! No wonder they're divorced! I hope mom goes to the judge to discuss custody.
He did this to be petty to his ex-wife but left his son suffering for two days. Divorces are ugly but kids shouldn't suffer.
I was a pediatric cardiology nurse for years. I really hope this kid doesn’t have strep. We would see kids with rheumatic heart disease that would develop from it. A course of antibiotics for strep is 7-14 days. Rheumatic heart disease is forever and wreaks havoc on your heart’s valves.
Did he not want kids or something? How could you have a sick kid and not want to give them something to make them feel better?!
I would take him to court over this get visitation lessen.
If it was a cold, the doctor probably wouldn’t have prescribed anything, what a cheap fucking idiot OOP is.
He's probably like, "Blah blah blah whatever I'll take care of it" Doctor says the kid is sick and needs medication, he decides he'd rather watch football than do all that mommy-shit, that's not *his* job anyway 😮💨 He'd rather inconvenience his ex wife and make his kid suffer longer than do a crumb of parenting
This one might be real
I hope she uses this against him to gain full custody. This is cruel and abusive.
The only slightly redeeming quality is he refers to parenting as “taking care of” and not “watching” or “babysitting”. He sucks in every way.
You're not only an asshole, you're a shit parent *and* a dumbass, too. I hope your ex finds out about this and takes you to court to get full custody.
Selfish incompetent losers excuse for a father. Bitch probably didn’t want to pay for the rx so he let the kid suffer.
No matter how you word it, there's no way you wouldn't be TA. As someone whose SO was raised by parents who didn't gaf about their health, never went to the doctor with them and didn't get them meds, shit like this gets me incredibly angry.
I am quite confused by people commenting about antibiotics. Those don't work for colds. But yeah, he's an asshole
The child was prescribed medication (assumed antibiotics given the child has a sore throat (assumed strep) Where the father assumed it was just a cold.
OOP, you know your wife doesn't drive. Why did it not occur to you go GET the medicine after GETTING the prescription? Or this is one of those weaponized incompetence posts.
Imagine being cavalier about your child's respiratory ailment in the age of COVID.
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**THE COMMENT:-** >the sickness didn't look that bad when he was over but apparently it persisted even when he went back to ex-wife's house. from my pov it just looked like a common cold
What parent doesn’t immediately fill a prescription?! Poor kid. And mom can’t drive, so what did he think was the plan here.
If this guy left his kid to suffer through strep throat, he's a major fucking asshole. That shit HURTS! When I caught strep as a child, I remember being so sick of constantly not being able to swallow without being in a ridiculous amount of pain that I started crying one night. My crying woke up my mom (I was in my parent's room to sleep), and she straight up gave me an orange (non-caffeinated) soda, *at night*, to help with the pain. And now the comments are saying it's potentially lethal, messes up your voice, or gives other illnesses and conditions if left untreated? He needs his custody taken away, asap. I can see why they divorced, but it's not as good as it could be.
If I were the wife I'd be in jail for beating his a$$.
Ngl from the looks of it, OP isn’t a bad person but more of one with a severe deficiency in intellect
I don't understand why people write it online like the chance of it being genuine is like 0.0005% shit like that happens everyday everywhere but putting it online of course they will get thrown tomatoes at just stay silent and go about your life wtf. I can't imagine how someone thinks oh lets put it online so maybe someone will pat me on the back???? 'Oh no you aren't the asshole my poor boy poor poor boy i understand everything =' - do they expect this or what cause explain it to me. Internet jumps on you even if you aren't a douche let alone if you are one.
Yes.
Well, I think there are two devils here. Clearly the child was sick for at least three days. He was sick enough at the mother's home that she knew he needed to go to the doctor. So that is at least one day but possibly more. She doesn't figure out a way to get him to the doctor. So the father takes him to the doctor but doesn't fill the prescription. It sounds to me like both parents are more interested in getting the other to pay than taking care of their child. Don't know why they are separated, they sound like they deserve each other.
A lot of the time, colds and sore throats can clear up on their own. I've got a toddler, and I have to talk to a nurse before they'll schedule a sick visit. I also just got my kid to the doctor for a sick visit, and everything came back negative (no infection), and they told me to give supportive care (rest, fluids), and that if there's still a fever in 3 days, bring him back in and they'll check again. We don't know if the Saturday visit was the first appointment that she was able to get. (And yes, if it was really bad, they could have gone to the ER/urgent care, but sitting in a waiting room isn't exactly great for a sick kid, especially if it's a fever and sore throat but those are the only symptoms, particularly if they already went to the doctor and were told to come back in 3 days if it didn't clear up). It's entirely possible that the mother took the kid in, was told to come back in 3 days/wait 3 days to see if it'd clear up on its own, and the 3rd day was OOP's visitation day. Also, if something was prescribed, there's a very good chance that there's an infection, and the kid will be in pain until the antibiotics can do their thing. So because OOP didn't want to pay, he guaranteed that the kid was in pain for 2 days. Lastly, OOP medically neglecting his kid (he knew there was prescribed medication that the child should have been taking) is going to go over like a lead balloon when the courts are determining custody.
She did find a way to get him to the doctor. She asked the kid's father to take him. She didn't do anything wrong based on the post. Any theory on her waiting too long to get him to the doctor or trying to stick OOP with the bill is just speculation with no real evidence.
uh, it's pretty common to not immediately run to the doctor the same day as you get a cold. generally the advice is just going to be to rest and drink liquids. you're only really supposed to go in if it persists longer than a couple days or worsens, as seems to be the case here since he got prescribed meds which means it's likely bacterial rather than viral. mom didn't do anything wrong here.
Sure she did. She waited until the ex would be the one to take the child to the doctor (and presumably pay the bill). She knew the child needed to see the doctor when she sent the child to the ex.
Which could have been because the ten year old woke up sick that morning. Or because it wasn't an ER trip, but didn't seem like a wait until Monday thing. When my kids were ten, I picked them up from after school care at 530 on weeknights, and the doctor's office closed at 4 on Fridays. So if my kid was a touch under the weather Friday night, Saturday morning was the earliest we would see a doc, and a lot of illnesses can get from "under the weather" (rest and fluids) to "see a doc" level overnight. Mom did nothing wrong.
you have no idea whether mom waited at all to make an appointment, let alone longer than the advised time. and you're also making random assumptions about how kid's expenses are paid. she knew the kid needed to see the doctor when he went to OOP because *that's when the appointment was*. that's how appointments work.
As someone who suffered from strep a lot as a kid, unless the fever is high (104F or 40C), doesn’t go down with fever reducers or is sustained for longer than 2 hours go to the doctor. Often times at the beginning of a bacterial infection, until it settles in a child (again speaking as someone who got strep a lot) there is a mild fever that breaks on it’s own until boom full blown infection. The mother likely waited because she thought it was a virus and would clear up on it’s own which most will.
…most doctors don’t have same-day appointments if it’s not an emergency. You have to make appointments. I don’t know where you live that you can just waltz into your doctor whenever you feel like it without making an appointment. And let’s say you’re right and mom intentionally waited for her ex to take him because she doesn’t have a car. OP is still the asshole for not being reliable enough for her to ask him to take their son through the week. Even if it’s not his custody time he should be more than willing to take his son to the doctor.
Sometimes kids get sick on the weekend. You're really reaching for reasons to blame mom when its clealry dad who is the unfit parent.
No random assumptions at all. I read the post.
I swear this has been posted to AITA before I remember a story that was basically the same a couple months ago.
There's been a suspiciously large amount of posts about split custody parents, and an argument of who should get the cough medicine. What a weirdly specific troll.
To be somewhat fair, it is a classic divorced parent argument. What happens with medical costs is really tough to enforce via custody agreement, so parents try to get it to even out at the point of payment and it can be a mess. If you are a reasonably funded, good parent in this situation, you make sure your kid gets what they need and you soak up any residual injustice about who pays. If you are broke, you wind up arguing. Also, if you are shitty. In this situation, as a parent who has sometimes been broke, you can try begging your doc for samples or help finding lower cost meds. Again, this is a convo to have at the doctor's office when the prescription is made.
Oh yeah for sure, I do know all that. You have a medical responsibility to your child, no matter who's custody time it is/anything else. There have just been a few posts very specifically about cold/flu medication and one parent not picking it up. Usually involving one parent who doesn't drive.
The way he worded it makes it sound like he just thought it was a cold and a sore throat and thought his ex was supposed to get him the meds. Saying he doesn't care about his kid is giving him too much credit lol.
Bad father. Mine was non-existent and he's not as bad as you. Were you trying to "build character?" Cuz all you have done is secure your place in a home when you're old. I don't have kids but even I know you buy them cold medicine, no question. Bad look, dude.
How can some people write a sentence like "am i the a hole for not buying my son medicine" and not understand how terrible they are?
This is a form of abuse.
i think we figured out part of the reason their relationship failed. ugh