Tuesday, April 17, 2012

B stumps the ENT

Today Brooke had another appointment with the ENT to check and see if her right tube was staying unclogged YET or not.  Travis had the pleasure of taking her this morning.  I had told him that I never get out of there in under an hour and a half.  The man was out of there and on his way in 45 minutes!  That is so not even fair!

And what did the ENT find when he looked in B's ear?  Well, it was clogged...again....worse than last week.  The left ear however looks fabulous...again.  So, he unclogged her right tube...again...and put ear drops directly into her ear drum...again....and told us to continue drops for a week....again....and then come back to have it checked....AGAIN!

The prognosis?  Well, lets be honest.  The poor man has been stumped by my darling baby girl.  He used titanium silver oxide coated T tubes when he put tubes in.  These tubes NEVER clog :)  He says he pulled out all the stops this time because he knows our history.  If her tube is clogged again next week (and let's be honest, I will die of a heart attack induced by shock if it isn't) we will likely have to go in and place a second tube in that right ear so she has two in the same ear.  Sound familiar?  Oh yea, I did that already!  The question becomes do we leave the left ear alone and cross our fingers that it doesn't start to clog the second she comes out of the second surgery, OR do we just insert a second tube in the left ear as well in anticipation?  Putting two tubes in each ear is a bit risky.  We did it with Sam, but she was older than B is now when we did it.  She was about five years old.  The reason it's risky is because the area where the tube is placed is quite small.  By placing two tubes in it, you are increasing the likelihood that the ear drum will rupture.  You also run the risk of the ear drum not repairing itself completely when the tubes come out (or should I say IF the tubes come out).  Sound familiar?  Oh yea, Sam had a hole that wouldn't heal fixed just over a year ago!

So, what now?  Wait...and do more ear drops.  If I would have known when I got married what I would go through with my children, I would have bought shares and shares and shares of  Floxin (the ear drops we use) stock!  I could have paid for all the surgeries the kids have had!

Did I mention that Dr. Blotter said it looked like there was a bit of infection in the right ear as well?  No?  Well, I just did.  We took B into the pediatrician yesterday because Sunday night she was up crying all night and running a high fever.  The pediatrician said it looked to be a very bad sinus infection (thank you Sam for sharing your germs) so he put her on antibiotics.  Appears the sinus infection had made an EARly appearance (aren't I hilarious? :) )  So much for hoping this child would pay me back with no ear infections since she put me through 10 weeks of preterm labor and weighed 10 lbs!

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