Our sweet Ava {and her poor, poor parents} have been dealing with chronic ear infections since March due to persistent fluid in the ears. I blame Tim. I blame my sister. Both of whom had poorly tilted eustachian tubes as children. I thought my children would be invincible to ear infections since they are given only the good stuff, but {ALAS!} this was not the case. We tried every known natural remedy in addition to the dreaded antibiotic route, which, by the way, is absolute torture for parents and babies alike. Most antibiotics require 10 full days of twice a day dosing--seriously??!! These fancy schmancy pharmaceutical companies can't come up with anything better--a dissolvable tablet??
And, while it took everything I had not to chug the entire bottle of 'bubblegum medicine' (the smell of the 'pink stuff' (amoxicillin) brought me straight back to my childhood), Ava's sensitive pallet was not impressed in the least. Let's just say that I have no worries that my baby girl will ever be held against her will. She learned quickly and effectively how to evade the medication and adapted her evading techniques {pursed lips, head turn, spitting it out, double head turn} as I tried every possible position and coaxing technique under the sun. I dreaded 7a and 7p each day...for a long time!
In reality, Ava handled the pain associated with these infections like a super champ, but enough is enough. In addition to not wanting to pump any more antibiotics into my 6 month old, that nasty fluid in her ears was causing hearing loss/distortion, which is not good at this age in speech development. I was proud of myself for going in for a second opinion, which luckily agreed with the first opinion.
So, today at 7:30a Ava had a new pair of ear tubes installed in her sweet little bulging ear drums. Dr. Katz also assured me that he drained lots of 'thick, yellow fluid' from behind both ear drums. He said that our happy little girl should be even happier {which is hard to believe}...but I take this to mean that she might just start sleeping thru the night....hey, I can dream, right??!?
I was so thankful that everything went off without a hitch and that my hot hubby {he even rocks a blue hair net} was there to handle the job of holding Ava while they put her to sleep and then holding my hand while we waited the 7 minutes for the procedure.
Ava was a little confused and upset upon awaking, but quickly settled down and then slept off the anesthesia for 3 hours at home.
2 comments:
Oh my I can sooooo relate! Poor poor Ava. Ear problems SUCK! We tried everything with Levi until we finally decided we needed to get the tubes and thank God. He has been so much better since, and finally started talking. Ear infections totally put a kink in the whole hearing and speaking department.
I'm so glad everything went well. Here's to happier ear days ahead!
Good to hear--some people made me feel like I must have been doing something wrong for her to have reoccurring ear infections...it was quite frustrating.
Ava already seems to be babbling more than before.
But, alas, has had a couple of rough nights--teething, I think.
A good reminder that it is always something ;-)
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