Medical Matters Pat HarroldIt is a fact, universally known by doctors, that children between the ages of three and six have rabbits in their ears. This occurrence happily coincides with the stage of their lives when they are likely to present with infections.
As a look at the eardrum is usually necessary, I have been saved many a struggle by those rabbits. You see, when you have to examine the little ears, and you explain to the tot that you are looking for the rabbits, it all goes smoothly.
It is usually a pleasure to deal with children and most cases are refreshingly straightforward with a good history and examination. Mind you, the parents can be hard going.
It starts in the waiting room. As you walk through the parent hisses: "There he is, stop it or he'll give out to you."
The child, who has been innocently rearranging the toys, looks troubled. Big, dubious eyes follow you to the reception desk. As you walk back, there comes a further muted threat: "If you're not good he'll stick a needle in you."
The battle is thereby lost without a shot being fired. A lower lip protrudes, a tear wobbles and the parent sinks with a satisfied sigh into last year's Hello! magazine.
If two parents meet up in the waiting room they try to outdo each other in threatening, cajoling and extorting their children to a degree of neuroticism matched only by that of the poor eejit of a doctor who will have to examine the, by now, completely wired kid.
It's like a badge of honour among parents: "See what I have to put up with when I bring them to the doctor."
The child is eventually called and the parent suddenly grabs the tot and hoists it in the door by an arm and a leg to you, the GP.
The child has already started to wail like the siren at a mining accident and the parent shouts above the din: "She hates doctors. Hates them. You won't get near her."
Just to remind the wee cratur they bellow: "She had to get an injection the last time and it hurt for days. STOP CRYING OR HE'LL GIVE YOU AN INJECTION."
The remaining children in the waiting room have started bawling too at this stage.
There are variations on this theme. If a baby is too young to understand the threats, the parent will grab it like a sheep shearer, startling it into a screaming fit. Without being asked they will tear layers of clothes away, throwing it around like the baby in a Punch and Judy show. This is before you have posed a single question.
When you have finally completed your examination, and your head is ringing like Big Ben, the nappy business starts.
They search for a nappy. They have no nappy.
They go out to the car, leaving you with the hysterical infant. They come back.
With painstaking care and in complete contrast to the ruffianly way they stripped their offspring, they do up every button and popper, rearrange the little jacket and blanket, undo the lot and start again, humming a little tune as a counterpoint to child's eldritch screech. Then, when it is all done, they roar, above the racket: "While I'm here can I ask about my husband's back?"
Eventually they leave. The last time your ears sustained such damage you were at Thin Lizzy, but you were younger then, and drunk.
You calm yourself, stick your head out the door of the waiting room and all the children, who have been listening for the past 10 minutes, try to get out the window.
You have ammunition. Stickers work with a certain age group. If you have children of a similar age you can chat knowledgably about Bob the Builder, through Prehistoric Park up to Neighbours. If they bring a favourite doll or teddy you examine them first, looking in the doll's ears and throat before their own.
When do they stop being children?
A paediatrician friend of mine who is 5ft 3in refuses to treat anyone taller than himself. However, I know another paediatrician who is about 6ft 11in, so where does that get you?
Inevitably the ex-children come in by themselves. They say, "You won't tell my parents I've been here, will you?" And in another few short years, where once you looked in their doll's ears you look at their own babies.
And guess what? These parents know all about the rabbits.
When not looking for rabbits, Pat Harrold is a GP in Tipperary.