Balancing Sick Children and Your Job, Part 2

We talk a lot about the work life balance here at WMAG. It’s critical. And as working moms, we think about the work life balance at least once a day, likely more. A sick child or children can throw that balance off quickly. The tightrope we walk of being the best mom and employee we can will fray the second you throw a sick kid in the mix. It’s enough that you have a sick child you need and WANT to give your all to, but the deadlines of a job or the dread of missing another day and your work piling up can make that special time cuddling and soothing your child become overshadowed by the anxiety of things left undone at work.

Recently, I had an experience that was frustrating. You know that feeling of dread when you pick your little one up from daycare or preschool only to find out that they are sick? Not so sick that daycare had to call but sick enough that you should do something before they come back? And you feel guilty and want to soothe them but going to Urgent Care or the ER is a little overkill? Not that I’m not prone to overkill in these situations… but it gets expensive to be crazy about every little illness. In this situation I was so grateful that I had access to U-Haul’s Kids Program.

My daughter had a diaper rash for several weeks. I had scoured the internet for at home cures and tried several, including putting yogurt in her diaper. Since she is potty training I even rewashed all of her underwear in fragrance free detergent and made sure they didn’t touch any other clothing that hadn’t been treated in the same manner. Nothing worked. And one afternoon when I picked her up from daycare the rash had spread and become fairly uncomfortable for her. But my options at 6PM were fairly limited. First, I would have to wait for my husband to get home from work to watch the other kids, because I’m not taking all of them with me. Second, was it bad enough to go the Urgent Care? How long would we be there?

Luckily I was able to use my Kids Program from U-Haul and we called MDLIVE. It was so easy. You just take your little card out, login to the system and request an appointment.

Once you have requested your appointment, it will show up on your MDLIVE account and a nurse will call you to see if they can help you or if you need to speak with the Dr. We did need to speak with the Dr but I loved the option of trying something before medications become involved.

The Dr was able to send a prescription to my local pharmacy, where it was covered at 100% – you can’t beat that. In no time my daughter was feeling better and I  wasn’t near as stressed out about having to get her in to see her pediatrician the next morning.

It’s a pretty exciting program for U-Haul associates. While it has some limitations, in my daughter’s instance it was perfect. I was able to describe the rash well enough. And if you can’t there is a webcam option available as well.

Does your job have anything like this? What do you think about a program like this?

I have been given access to U-Haul’s Kids Program. The opinions of the program are all mine.