Ear Transplant anyone?

When Jeff was growing up he had a terrible time with getting ear infections. He had tubes. 3 times! And had some hearing loss that affected his speech for a while (although it was quickly resolved with some speech therapy). And it seems that he has passed on this lovely little trait to our sweet boy :-(

This is boring to most, I'm sure, but for my own records I'd like to make note of Mack's sicknesses this past few months.

At Macks 15 month checkup he received 4 shots. 3 regular vaccinations and one flu shot. Poor guy! 4 days later he was running a fever of up to 103.3! I called the nurse advice line at our pediatricians office and the nice lady assured me that it is totally normal to run a fever after the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) up to 103 and that it can last 3 days. That there was no reason to think that he was contagious or sick. So, on life went. On day 5, he was pitiful. His fever was so high and he was so lethargic. He was with Tracy (we were all still under the assumption that the mmr was the culprit) and she was so sweet to basically just hold him all day. But Thursday night, when he was still running a high fever, I put in a call to the Dr after hours.

And what she told me irritated me. "Oh no, this wouldnt be caused by the MMR. The MMR does typically cause a fever but it doesnt come until around day 7. Day 3-4 is far too early. This is either a virus or strep".
Wow. Score. So i had sent Mack, SICK, to Tracy's. Nice.

Turned out, it was a virus. And like most viruses, when it was over, he had a BAD cold/congestion.
Which turned into an ear infection. #1.

We got amoxicillin, took it for 10 days (um, FOUGHT him to make him take it for 10 days) and he seemed fine! YAY! For about 3 days. And then he seemed like his ears were hurting again?!

So I took him to an on call (adult) clinic. This pic is from our ride over. I think he was so exhausted that he was falling asleep anytime he got comfortable sitting up :-(

We were chillin in the waiting room when Mack started swallowing a lot. And i thought to myself "i wonder if he's going to throw up?" and about that time he puked all over me. Sad!

So he got stripped down

And then in the treatment room, it wasnt enough that we both smelled of puke, he decided he needed to crawl under the table and poop. The room wreaked. Enough that the nurse offered to move us to a different room! Embarrassed as I may have been, I was grateful for the fresh room :-)

The Dr said he still had an infection in BOTH ears and gave him a Rx of Ceftin. Which CVS took forever to fill while it was 9pm and my kid was exhausted and crying. I should have gone IN the pharmacy instead of going through the drive through. Something tells me that his presence may have sped them up ;-)

I left to go out of town on a girls trip (post coming) on Thursday night and felt so much better to know that he was on a new Rx and would be ok for his Daddy while I was gone.

WRONG! On Saturday, Jeff called and said he thought Mack needed to go to the dr again. So this time I told him to go to CHOA (childrens healthcare of atlanta). There, they said that he indeed still had a double ear infection and that ceftin is not a good antibiotic for ear infections. And that we really should not take him to an adult clinic b/c they dont know how best to treat kids (they said this very nicely).

Finally, this new antibiotic worked! (i dont remember the name). After 3 weeks of ear infections and nightly crying, he was finally doing better! This was all in October.

Then, he got another virus in November (early November). The fever, once again, left him with lots of congestion. We started suspecting the week before thanksgiving that he might have another ear infection, but we werent sure. He was still SO congested and the Dr had recommended once before that if he had a hard time breathing at night that we could give 3/4 tsp of benadryl. So we were doing that nightly to help him dry up a little and he seemed ok?

We made it through Thanksgiving and I told Jeff (just this week) that I just thought something was STILL wrong. That if i didnt give him benadryl he cried at night (a lot) and that didnt make sense. So we went BACK to the dr (7th visit in 10 weeks. 1. 15 month check up 2. one week later- virus 3. one week later-ear infection 4. 2 weeks later- ear infection 5.-4 days later- ear infection 6. 3 weeks later-virus 7. 2 weeks later- ear infection). And it is yet another ear infection!

So, we have him on Augmentin now. Its hard on the tummy so we're making sure he gets florastor (a great probiotic for babies) but we are so hopeful that this will be the last of the ear infections! According to a patient of mine who is a pediatrician, the "rule of thumb" is 4 ear infections in a year. She said that they may would even go ahead and consider it after 3 since its been in less than 3 months... but since we're already on the mend, we'll hold out till next time... hoping there wont be a next time!

He is finally getting sleep again, which means we are ALL getting to sleep again :-) It had gotten so bad that each night, Rhyan started praying that "Mackee will not cry and wake me up tonight"! LOL! I think we've ALL been praying that for a while. And now, we're hoping those prayers are answered. Permanently!