My daughter who has only had maybe 1-2 ear infections in her entire nearly 5 and a half years of life. Started complaining her ear was hurting "real real bad". I instantly knew that wasn't a good thing, as Kams NEVER complains of pain (unless it's her tummy). She started saying her throat hurt too. Ooh boy.
She was up until nearly 1:30am last night (er early this morning?) crying because she was in THAT much pain. My daughter doesn't EVER do that. She was hurting, big time and the children's pain medicines didn't do a darn thing for her. The heating pad didn't help, Mommy snuggles didn't help, sweet oil didn't help. She was miserable. I was miserable because she was miserable. Nothing worse than watching your child sob because they hurt and there is nothing you can do about it.
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| Talking on her "cell phone" to Daddy, she had to call and tell him what was going on. She's so cute she never leaves the house without her cell phone or keys, she does better than I do. We don't even USE a cell phone at the moment and I never have my keys with me lol |
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| She's so silly but she stayed in a good mood the whole time we were at the doctor's office even though her ear was hurting. |
The doctor goes and gets another pedi to come in and take a look just for a second opinion (thank you very much). She thought the ear drum was perferated. WHAT?! OUCH! My poor baby!
I have a tendancy to FREAK OUT over ear infections and ears in general because I know I suffered from multiple ear infections my ENTIRE childhood, and I STILL DO!! My husband also suffered through ear problems and was actually stabbed IN the ear with a pencil as a child and has lost a LOT of hearing. Plus all 3 kids have a speech delay and ANYTHING affecting their hearing can throw their speech development off track again, and Kams has come a LONG WAY in her speech therapy.
So I'm like internally freaking out while calmly asking the doctor questions. What can we do? What caused this? How can we treat it?
They decide the best path is to send us a few doors down to the ENT.
Aw yes, the ENT. Our old foe. We've dealt with this ENT before, back in the day a long long time ago when Kams was a wee babe. She was around a month and a half old I think, close to 2 months, but she wasn't 3 months yet. Anyway she had been gasping and gagging and choking and couldn't drink from a bottle (which was a problem because I was back at work and she needed her breast milk from a bottle while I was gone). She would gag and have issues breathing and she had the slowest bottle nipple known to man, erm..infant. Anyway, the day before Halloween she was in the hospital over night they thought she had "bronchitis" (the gagging choking etc). It wasn't. We came home Halloween day. Then the first part of November I charged into her Pedi's office demanding answers as to why my baby girl sounded like she was dying everytime she drank from a bottle (and we were doing everything "right"). Anyway after basically telling the pedi to shove off and FIND someone competant enough to find out what was wrong with my daughter...he finally made an appointment to see the local ENT.
That guy.
He isn't a BAD doctor, not at all. He just has kind of lousey bedside manner and I don't think he does well with infants/young children, but that's just me. Plus not going to lie I'm sure I came off as grizzly bear mom on steroids or something ready to go for the jugular if someone didn't find out what was wrong with my daughter (Do you know how many times I had to leave work to go get my daughter to just NURSE her because she couldn't drink from the bottle? OR how many times we had to take her to the ER because she was starting to turn BLUE from choking and gagging?! It was SCARY and I couldn't keep leaving work like that!)
So he scoped her. It wasn't pretty. It's something I'll never forget. His attitude about the whole thing sucked too, he was pretty crass and rude about it.
So today we walked back into that office (I didn't recognize the office at first as we hadn't been in that office since 2007). I thought maybe their office had changed buildings or something over the years. We went into one exam room and he looked in Kams ear, she was fine with it, he used a little camera thingy to look in her ear and I could see the spot everyone was talking about. Kams did fine with that and thought seeing her ear was neat.
Then we went to the next room. WOW. That's when I realized the office WAS the same, and it was the same doctor (up until that exact moment I wasn't even 100% sure it had been that ENT we had seen originally because it had been 5 years and I never caught the Dr.'s name the first time we went because I was freaking out too much...) So anyway yeh, seeing my daughter laying on that SAME little table again....Eeek. Flash back much! I wanted to snatch her up and run from the room. Stupid I know. I held it together. Just held Kams hand and told her to ly real still and the doctor was just looking in her ear right quick.
He did, and he poked around in there with a sharp metal object....(glad Kams didn't move).
She has an absyss (or blister) in her ear by her ear drum caused by too much pressure on her ear drum. From congestion and being sick. It will get bigger and bigger if something isn't done. So my choices? Have the blister "popped" right there right now unsedated. Painful. But possible (I got to hear the story about how he did it to his daughter when she was younger than mine) Etc etc.
I decided we were NOT going to just strap her down and pop a painful blister in her ear without numbing the area. Nope. Not happening. It's a procedure similar to getting TUBES put in, and if the hospital sedates children for that procedure I will have my daughter sedated to do this one.
So it is scheduled for tomorrow morning.
She's not a happy camper. The entire ride home from the hospital she was in total shut down mode (she gets that from her Daddy apparently...) She refused to talk, or even look at me. She came home and was one ticked off child. She sat and she pouted and refused to talk to anyone. I calmly explained what was going to happen, and that she would be ok and Mommy and Daddy wouldn't be far away.
She's "okish" with it all now, for now.
They will pop the blister thing and then they will put a small hole in her ear drum like they would for putting in an ear tube (I know that procedure well as both boys had it done over the summer). so this will relieve the pressure on her ear drum. I will be getting her back in to see the ENT at the Children's hospital after this.
I'm a little nervous because we're used to the Children's hospital, we see them for everything major. We see the pedi for colds, and well child check ups but the children's hospital sees us for every thing else. We love them. They know my children, they know me. They specialize in children. However, there was not enough time to get Kams in to see the children's hospital. I thought this was just a simple ear infection and they'd give us some drops or antibiotics and we'd be on our way. I wasn't expecting to be sent to the local ENT and to wind up finding out my daughter needed a minor surgery the next day.
It's never that easy. Ever.
So yes, I have my reservations about tomorrow, I think that's normal. It's not that I dislike the doctor doing this, just we have a past history when it comes to my daughter and pain! I don't want her in pain. But the doctor has to do his job, and he will, and I know he'll do just fine. Many of my friends have used him for their child's ear tubes and things like that and all was well so I know things will be fine.
Kams came home from the appointment and ate some lunch. I went to go take care of some laundry and when I came back, my exhausted little girl had fallen asleep at the table. I gently scooped her up and laid her down on the couch to get some rest. She did NOT sleep last night due to the pain, when she finally DID get to sleep, it was restless she tossed and turned and cried in her sleep moaning about her ear. Broke. My Heart.
So tonight while giving the kids a bath, Kams came in the bathroom to talk to me while I washed the boys hair. Keegan heard me say something about the hospital, and procedure and that boy darn near flipped out on me and almost jumped out of that tub and ran for his life. (I had told Kams she needed to get to bed for her visit to the hospital for her procedure tomorrow). Keegan jumps up yelling ..."NOT ME MOM NOT ME!!! I'm FINE!! NOT ME!" Broke my heart. Took him a good 10min to settle down and reassured over and over it wasn't HIM going to the hospital, it was SISSY going for her ear. Even Kamilah had to tell him before he would believe it. Finally Keegan said something about how he was glad it was his sister and not him going to the hospital he was tired of going.
He may be 3 and a half years old but he's spent more time in and out of the hospital and had more things done to him then most adults have had done to them! It takes a toll. He knows scan time is near too (Feb. 20th and 22nd) and he's not at all ready for that. He keeps asking if he HAS to go.
Stupid childhood cancer.
He finally went to bed pleased that HE is going to school tomorrow to have a nice NORMAL day, and it's Sissy who will be poked and prodded for once (I'd prefer NONE of my children be poked and prodded thank you very much!)
I'm up way too late as is, have to be up early in the morning as Kams has to be at the hospital by 6:30am (atleast we aren't driving 30 some odd miles away to the Children's hospital, just going across town so that is nice for once!). It's going to be a fun juggling act getting the boys ready for school tomorrow and dealing with Kams, and just preparing everything that needs to be done (plus we have bad weather coming in tomorrow too supposed to have some snow and COLD temps and we just got tons of rain today so everything is going to be ICE!)
Mae
