Ear's the Problem

Bonnie is sick.

AGAIN.

Or maybe I should say still?

I don't know, I've lost track of where one illness stops and the other begins over the last few months.

She had a runny nose at her well check-up last Wednesday. Dr. G said some kids are just snottier than others.

Yum.

Nurse Debbie (I love her) said that the vaccines Bon got that day could cause a fever in 7-10 days. No sweat, The Biggies never had a problem with any of their vaccines including the scary one.

So, the nose continued to run, the cough continued to deepen and The Bon continued to be as fussy as if she was approaching her first period.

Cousin Lauren, pediatric trauma nurse extraordinaire, listened to Bonnie's lungs on Sunday and they were blessedly clear of those dreadful pneumonia sounds. That went a long way to easing my worries.

But the fussing and the mucus continued.

Yesterday, I put Bonnie down for a later nap and lost track of time while I did my end-of-day chores. When I realized how long she'd slept, I ran up to wake her.

Reaching into her crib, I felt like someone removed my baby and replaced her with a space heater.

Oh SHIT.

One frantic call to Tom later, we were the proud new owners of a rectal thermometer. I chewed my lip raw watching the numbers go from 99 to 100 to 101 to 102.7.

That's a FEVER.

Okay, I know, I know, fevers themselves are not an illness, they are the body's defense against illness, they are not considered cause for concern anymore, blah blah blah. But if that is true then why can't kids come back to school until they are fever-free without the help of medicine? And if a fever is high, it IS cause for concern (in my opinion, at least) because that little body is fighting off something bad.

Still, I tried not to panic which is really hard for this hypochondriac-by-proxy. I chanted my mantra of "MMR and Varicella vaccines can cause a fever 7-10 days after innoculation" all evening and into the night. Maybe that was it, maybe it was that simple was my hope. Don't I know better than to hope by now?

When Bonnie called for me in her exhausted, pained cry this morning, I knew she wasn't better. And I knew it wasn't the vaccines.

Dr. Gould just confirmed that my mother's intuition was right.

Bonnie has a bilateral ear infection.

AGAIN.

Back on the antibiotic she goes.

AGAIN.

He's not sending us to an ENT for tubes yet because we saw that her ears can drain since they were looking better last week. If she clears up and the infection comes back again, it's Tube City for Bonnie and some Xanax for Mommy to get through the trauma of watching them wheel my baby into an OR without me.

Hopefully, as this awful winter replete with respiratory bugs turns to spring, Bonnie will not get any more infections. Then when the viruses pop up again next fall, her eustachian tubes will have elongated and become less likely to hold in the fluid when she gets a simple cold. (I think that's what they are supposed to do. My medical degree is from WebMD.com so don't quote me on that.)

Natalie came to the appointment with us and we ended up with a 2-kids-for-1-copay deal. Woohoo! Dr. G. checked her ears (clear), looked up her nose and in her throat (full of gunk) and wrote me a prescription to be filled late next week if she hasn't cleared up by then. He also gave me some Bactroban samples because the raw skin around her nostrils is getting infected. Awesome.

I don't want to jinx Jack by pointing out that he's been healthy as the proverbial horse while his sisters' health has been as delicate as hothouse flowers so I won't. Does that count?

We won't even talk about how creeped out I was while Bonnie napped and I watched crows walking back and forth in front of my house. CROWS. The classic harbinger of doom. But yeah, I won't talk about that because it will make me look crazy.(er)