Is there a doctor in the Taos?

Taos Plaza

Taos chillies

Taos slopes

Day I've-lost-count of Louis' illness and it was time to face facts: the alleged healing waters of Pagosa Springs were nothing but a sham. There was nothing else for it. We'd have to bite the bullet and brave the American healthcare system. That I'd made it this far into Louis' US adventure without taking him to a doctor either spoke realms about my bravery as a Mom - or my carelessness. You choose. If he'd been a proper American baby, and I'd been a proper American Mom, he'd have had countless check ups with his own personal pediatrician by now. Instead, Louis got me and some snuffle rub I'd brought from Boots. 

To be honest, I felt a bit cheated that he'd even got sick. Okay so he'd braved sub-zero dawns and sunsets at the Grand Canyon and in the desert, not to mention bathing outside with snow on the ground, but isn't breast milk  supposed to be stuffed full of special antibodies that make babies invincible? Or do they just tell you that so you don't use formula? 

Despite spending at least half the night coughing, Louis failed to cough even once for the doctor. Or I should say, so-called doctor. She turned out just to be some sort of trumped up nurse, and not a very convincing one at that. All that she did was weigh him (he'd lost weight), measure his oxygen (it was 96, whatever that means) and take his temperature. He had one. I knew that. Even without a thermometer I knew that. 

But to make us feel like we'd got our $100 worth, she prescribed him two lots of medicine and gave me a long internet print out about what do to if your baby has croup. Er, thanks. I thought the last thing most doctors wanted you to do was worry yourself sick by browsing the web for the scariest illness possible? Yet here we were, 100 bucks down, and we'd been handed a list of symptoms for a Victorian illness that Louis most certainly didn't have. It was almost enough to make us miss the NHS.