Fear the Ear

My son has constant ear infections. He had an unrelenting double ear infection from 6 months old to a year, when he got tubes put in. I had a clingy, don't leave me, miserable child for 6 months straight.

The tubes helped but helped is relative. His ear infection would be just...one ear, then both, every month or two. He had a terrible bout over the summer, and we saw the doctor three times, the last time she said "wow, the worst case I have seen in a while" and we ended up staying out f state, extending our vacation and pocketbooks because there was no way my amazingly ill boy would do a 2,000 mile road trip.

This January he got croup which morphed into an ear infection. Then a double ear infection. Then an ear oozing blood from the infected ear being so swollen.

Guess what? He has napped two hours today (he is usually a brief napper) and I look over to see his ear glistening in waxy orange. I grab the pen light and look into his ear to see...blood. Not oozing out, not staining the pillow, but freshly dried blood coating the ear canal.

His January ear infections did go away, as he saw the ENT specialist last week who said he looked great, but that the tubes had turned, ready to fall out, time for new tubes and an adenoidectomy, the adenoids likely spewing germs into his eustacian tube and causing never ending infections.

So now I hold my sweet napping guy, it's three weeks till his surgery (gosh I hate surgery, surgeries freak me out like no other) wishing he could be well. Always. Heck, I will happily settle for more often.