The doctor saw Theodore privately.
About an hour after Theodore had gone into the examining room,
the receptionist told Rose the doctor would like to speak to her.
Rose passed Theodore in the hall as he went back to the waiting room.
She told him she only expected to be a few minutes and to wait there for her.
The doctor told Rose that he couldn’t find anything wrong with Theodore organically, but that the boy seemed depressed to him.
Rose explained what had happened to his parents and the events of the past two mornings.
The doctor nodded sagely and told her that it was not uncommon in a situation like this for young people to wet the bed.
He asked her if Theodore had any other changes in his behavior and she responded in the negative.
The doctor assured her that his bedwetting, although mildly abnormal, was nothing to be concerned about for the moment.
He suggested gently that she get a waterproof mattress protector for the bed and try to restrict Theodore’s fluid intake before bedtime.
He also suggested she put an absorbent bed pad on the middle of the bed at waist height every night to help keep the bedclothes dry.
If the bedwetting continued, he suggested that she might want to consider having Theodore wear incontinent briefs to bed.
He gave her the name and number of a child psychiatrist and told her that some counseling wrote a prescription for the antidepressants and told her that there was a pharmacy on the first floor.
Rose thanked him and left, stopping in front of the pharmacy on their way out.
Theodore looked confused when she asked him what his waist size was before giving him Baby John John to hold.
She smiled and told him it was all right and rooted around in her purse for a few minutes before finding a small metal tape measure she carried in her purse for shopping.
She flipped it around his waist and measured him before leaving the two of them in front of the pharmacy.
She returned a few minutes later with a large plastic bag in her hand and offered to take Baby John John from Theodore.
He refused, saying that Baby John John wasn’t very heavy and it wasn’t far to the car.
When they got home, Theodore helped Rose carry the mattress back up the stairs into his bedroom and put it on the bed.
Theodore wasn’t surprised when Rose removed a package from the bag she had gotten earlier in the day and took out a waterproof mattress protector.
The doctor had told him he was going to tell Mrs Fields to put a cover over the mattress to keep him from damaging the mattress.
While he was ashamed of what was happening to him, he was glad that he wouldn’t have to drag the mattress up and down the staircase anymore.
That mattress was heavy!
He was also glad that Mrs Fields wouldn’t have to clean the mattress anymore;
she had looked irritated this morning when he told her what had happened.
At least this way all she’d have to clean would be the sheets and blanket, he thought.
The rest of the day went normally and Theodore was surprised at dinner when she offered him a second glass of milk.