Tubes

Jason has always had problems with his ears. His ear problems go all the way back to his 6 month check-up. He's 3 3/4 now so these problems have been ongoing for over 3 years now. If you want the full rundown or need a refresher check the label ears and all my previous posts about his ears will come up.

We had a reprieve last winter and he only had 1 ear infection the whole winter. I thought maybe we were done with ear infections, maybe he'd just grown out of them. Unfortunately I was wrong. He got his first ear infection in September and by mid-December had been on 5 rounds or antibiotics. Finally I got fed up, switched Drs, and asked the new Dr about tubes. The new Dr said he would recommend tubes now given his history. So on December 20 we got a referral to an ENT.

Now being so close to the holidays I figured it would be after the first of the year before we could get in for a consult. Imagine my surprise to find out that they had an appointment available December 29! I didn't have to think long on that one. We met the ENT who said Jason was definitely a good candidate for ear tubes and said to go ahead and schedule surgery.

When I talked to the lady who schedules surgery for this dr I told her the next available appointment would work great and mentally began thinking about time off of work, a sub for Dan and all those details that I obsess over. I was shocked when she said he had an opening January 4. Not the most ideal way to spend our last official day of break but it also meant no one had to take time off of work. Dan was slated to return to work on January 5 but I didn't have to go back until the 9th.

Our report time to the hospital was 7am. Oh boy was that hard for us. We were on vacation. We had grown accustomed to going to bed at 3am and getting up at 10am. Never the less we made it, very tired, to our check in time.

Jason got all hooked up and dressed for surgery and then he got to watch some cartoons with his trusted friend Froggy. The whole surgery was super quick. We spent more time waiting in the room before and after surgery than he spent in surgery. Everyone Jason met was so enamored by him. He had his sweet, charming personality turned up to 10 that morning.
After surgery he came back to the room complaining that his ear was hurting. Poor baby he couldn't understand or process why his ear was hurting so much. We had to stay an hour after the surgery was done just to make sure he didn't have any complications from the anesthesia. Once we were clear we headed home and all took a glorious nap.

Jason woke up from his nap just as happy as could be. If you didn't know he had surgery you never would have guessed it. He was chipper and joyful the rest of the day. He has his two week post-op appointment today. I feel like things are going well but we'll see what the Dr says. He is also going to get custom ear molds made so he can take baths again. Right now we are stuffing his ears with cotton when he showers. Maybe ear molds will work better??? Dan said they didn't work for him but I'm willing to try, after all technology has come a long way since he was 3.

Poor Baby Bear

This picture pretty much sums up how Jason has been recently. Jason has been a fussy, clingy disaster for several days now. Actually really its been more like a week. He's cutting three, yeah 3, molars so I figured he was just in a lot of pain from his teeth. Plus Dan and I were involved in a wedding last week so the kids were really off schedule so teeth + off schedule = grumpy Jason, at least that's what I thought.

Then yesterday morning I decided to take his temperature. I'd taken it before and it was up but not much. Well this morning it was 100.7. I knew from talking to the dr previously that if it was under 101 take the wait and see approach. So we waited. We took Jonathan to summer camp and picked up my dad from the airport. After lunch we took his temp again and it was 103 so off to the dr we went. And for the "surprise" of the year Jason has yet another ear infection. So sad.

Then we got to the pharmacy where I just about died. Jason is allergic to penicillin which means he can't have the most common antibiotics for ear infections. He's been off and on omnicief since January and the dr felt like it wasn't quite strong enough to do the trick so we kicked it up a notch. However, this new drug isn't prefered for kids, but Jason can't have the prefered drugs cause he's allergic to penicillin. Since its not prefered our insurance didn't cover it, at all. The pharmacist asked if I really wanted this med. DUH! So $160 dollars later I left the pharmacy with a very foul smelling med. Hopefully this works otherwise we'll start talking tubes.

I'm Back

Finally, after what seems like forever, I feel like I have time to blog again. School is still incredibly busy and it probably will be until May. Mid-terms are over and I did fairly well.

My mom has come and gone but she'll be back in May just after school gets out. We had a great time while she was here. I still have several more posts, besides this one, about her trip in the works.

My birthday came and went and I had a fantastic time. We didn't do much on my actual birthday, just open presents. Dan got me new car speakers and installed them. I'm so excited! I have only had one working speaker in my car for almost a year now. Since I commute about 16 miles a day the music has been a little lame. I will be nice to have music with bass again!

Jason turned 11 months on the 18th. I can't be believe he's almost 1. Here is his 10 month picture with his bear to compare with 11 months, below.


Jonathan and Jason went to the Dr last week. Jonathan's asthma seems to be under control. The Dr said his breathing sounded great. Jason's ears are almost completely cleared up. There is no fluid in his right ear and just a little in his left. The Dr is confident that it will all be cleared up by his 1 year check-up. Praise the Lord!

And don't forget Kellsey's auction. Bidding ends today at 11:59 pm central time.

That's it for now but I'll be back tomorrow!

Ears again and 10 months

Yesterday we went back to the doctor to have Jason's ears checked again. If you need a refresher on Jason's ears click the "Ears" tag to read all my previous posts about ears. The last time we were there there was still fluid in his ears but the fluid wasn't infected. Even though he hasn't had any fevers he also hasn't been sleeping very well and because of that I had my suspicions that his ears were infected again. The doctor confirmed my suspicions and actually said Jason's ears looked worse than he as ever seen them. Big bummer. Since he's allergic to penicillin that means he can't have the antibiotics that are most effective against ear infections. So we are on a different, possibly less effective antibiotic. Then the pharmacist tells us that 10% of kids who are allergic to penicillin are also allergic to this drug. If he's allergic to this antibiotic as well then the pharmacist said our options are very limited. Oh great.

So for my prayer warriors out there can y'all pray with us that Jason's ears clear up, he doesn't have to get tubes, and that he isn't allergic to this drug. Love y'all!

It's hard to believe our baby bear is 10 months old. (actually now he's almost 10 1/2 it's taken me a while to post this) Here is his picture with his bear.

Jason's 9 month picture for comparison.

Ears and Shoulders

Oh what a week this has been. Three of the four of us have been to the doctor and one of us went twice. Trip 1 - Monday Jason went to the dr about his ears. Trip 2 - Last Friday (Feb 6) was senior night for basketball. Some of the students that Dan and I are close to are seniors so we packed up our two kids plus the one we were babysitting and headed off to the game. Most of the evening was spent with a kid on my left hip. This meant that my right arm was across my body to help support heavy children. Saturday I could barely move my arm and over the course of the week my arm kept hurting worse and worse. So Thursday I went to the dr and found out that all the muscles in my shoulder are inflamed. I now have a referral for massage therapy. I'm a little excited about that prospect! Trip 3 - Shortly after I left the Dr on Thursday Dan called me to say that his ears hurt and everything sounded kinda funny. So off to the dr he went. He came home with an ear infection, sinus infection and retracted ear drum. Trip 4 - Friday, while Dan and I were at MCL, my MIL notice that Jason was really sensitive about his left ear. Saturday morning he wouldn't let anyone touch the left side of his head. I'm so glad that our dr's office is open on Saturday and even better this week our beloved dr was the one in the office. He took a look at Jason's ear and then looked at us and asked if Jason had been spending a lot of time in the swimming pool. Ummm no, why? Turns out Jason has swimmers ear. Apparently if you produce an over abundance of ear wax (which Jason does) you can get swimmers ear from taking a bath. So now we have to be very careful and put drops of olive oil in his ear to keep the wax from building up too much.

I realized today that I haven't been taking very many pictures. I have a load of homework due Tuesday but I'm going to get back on the picture taking, I promise.

Ears

And for my 100th post we will talk about ears... I feel like I should so something for this momentous occasion but I've got nothing...

Well it seems my sweet little Jason has been "blessed" with his daddy's ears. Growing up Dan had chronic ear infections. He has had tubes twice and has some hearing loss from all his ear problems. I took Jason into the Dr today for a follow up about his ears. I'll spare y'all retelling the whole story, if you need a refresher go here. The infection has cleared up but there is still fluid in his ears. To prevent any possible hearing loss we will be going back to the dr every three weeks until the fluid is gone. Dr. Mike is hoping that the fluid will clear up when the weather gets better. He said if the fluid is still there when Jason turns 15 months (9 months from when it showed up in October) then we will discuss tubes. So Jason you have until July to get this problem cleared up!

In other news he has also apparently been "blessed" with my allergy to penicillin. This I do have to share the back story for or nothing will make sense.

While I was pregnant with Jason I managed to get pneumonia. The Dr gave me Augmentin which I promptly had an allergic reaction too while Dan was out of town. Oh the timing on that one! Anyway about a week after starting his Amoxicillen Jason broke out in a big time rash. I was in class so bless his heart Dan had to tackle this problem by himself. He did great taking both kids to the Dr and still feeding everyone dinner by the time I got home. Anyway Jason has been labled as allergic to penicillin, which greatly reduces the drugs that we can use to try and clear all this fluid up. So friends please pray that it clears up and tubes are not necessary.

Oh heavens I love this kid. Seriously I could just eat him up, but y'all know that already!

Praise the Lord

Jason has an ear infection. I know y'all are thinking did I just read that right is she actually praising the Lord for an ear infection. Yeah you absolutely read that right. Perhaps a little background...

At his 6th month check-up in October our doctor noticed a little fluid in Jason's right ear. It wasn't infected so he said not to worry about it right now but come back in 3 weeks to see if it had cleared up. 3 weeks later we went back and the fluid was still there. So the doctor said come back before you leave for Christmas and we'll check again. So we went in right before we left on our vacation and the fluid was still there and still not infected. The doctor said that if it wasn't gone by his 9 month we might need to think about tubes to drain the fluid. He he half jokingly said we could also hope it gets infected so we can give him some antibiotics to treat it. He didn't want to give antibiotics unless it was infected because he didn't want to cause Jason to build up any resistances at this age. Well waiting until after Christmas meant our deductible would roll over and we would have to meet it before our insurance would help with tubes. So I started praying for the ear infection because $10 in meds is way less expensive than surgery. Well God heard my prayers and Jason is on a 10 day course of meds for an ear infection. Hopefully this will kick that fluid and take care of the problem. So other than an ear infection, which he hadn't complained about at all, Jason is a very healthy 9 month old boy.

And now for a picture of that healthy little boy.

What a joyful little boy. He brings so much happiness to our house. We are blessed!