Anyone Have a Light?

This is a really long story. Sorry.

The Little Master has been off his game. Poor guy had strep AND the flu at the same time. When the pediatricain saw him last Friday, he said that he did have some fluid in his ear, but it wasn't inflamed.

Over the weekend, his fever started to come down and his symptoms seemed to go away. But he was paying less attention to me than usual. At first I chalked it up to his being a sick three year old. Then he wouldnt listen to ANYTHING I had to say, and I realized that he truly couldnt hear me. I tried the old, "Do you want to go to Chuck E Cheese?" trick to check. He didnt respond. I flushed his ears a bit, thinking that he just had too much wax in his ears again and maybe that was the problem. I got a bit out. Nothing big and he still couldnt hear me. Ear wax removal is not a talent of mine. Nasal suctioning - HUGE talent of mine. Bring me your sick and snotty, and I will clear their airwaves!!!!!!! But not wax. It never works well when I try it.

On Monday, I called his pediatrician's office to find out if they could see him and found out that the doctor was out for a bit, due to having a heart attack over the weekend. (Some people will do ANYTHING to get a few days off.) So Don took him to Urgent Care that night and they said that he had enough wax in his ear that they couldn't really tell, but they thought that he was fine. They suggested that we flush out his ear at home on our own. I thought they were stupid because being deaf isn't fine. Isn't that why it's considered a handicap? Stupid. Whatever, I flushed his ears. He was hysterical and still couldnt hear.

On Tuesday, I took him to the ENT that removed his tonsils and adenoids last year. Nice guy, kid at home TLM's age, I figured it was all good. Plus, he's a specialist, right? He had to know more than the wackadoodles at Urgent Care. Surely. The audiologist tried to do a hearing screening, but said that his ears were too full of wax to do one. *I have to stop here and mention that I know that TLM has excessive ear wax. It "runs" in Don's family. They've removed wax before at Urgent Care and his pediatrician's office in the past. I know it's there. I know it's excessive. No one seems to care though.* So anyways, the audiologist sent me down the hall for the ENT to clear out some of the wax so that she could check his hearing. The ENT said that he could see past the wax well enough to see that TLM's ear drum was NOT infected but did have some fluid behind it. He said that the fluid could be causing some hearing loss, but that it should drain on its own. When I asked about the hearing test and wax, he said that he wasnt really comfortable removing wax from such a small person and we should just wait out the deafness "2 or 3 more weeks" to see if the fluid would leave and his hearing would come back. Whatever! What an idiot! You want my kid to be deaf for three weeks just because you dont want to remove ear wax? But whatever, I packed up my pack of loonies and left. Oh, he did give me an RX for an antibiotic, "in case he did end up with an infection." It was like pity antibiotics. No thanks. And when I went to fill it, just in case, the pharmacy said that it was one of the meds that TLM is allergic to. Apparently, this "specialist" wanted my child to be deaf AND die of an allergic reaction. Dork.

So then I got the flu and kinda gave into the "wait and see" idea out of laziness and neglect. Ya, I know, bad mom. Then this weekend, TLM started crying a lot and pulling on his ear and freaking out a lot more than usual. Starting to panic, I called my dear sweet brother in law, who is an ENT, to find out what to do. He wasn't home, so I just talked to my sister and she gave me lots of advice. Just so you know, that's JUST as good as talking to an actual doctor. For reals. She didnt suggest three weeks of deafness OR meds that would kill him, so I figured that was a step in the right direction. Then a few hours later, dear Dr. Ben called, listened to my nonsense about everything (including my query as to if I should start learning ASL), and told me to take TLM into a pediatric ENT the next day.

And since February just wouldn't be February without a NEW specialist, I drove into town today and took in my little guy. The ENT looked in his ears for like 3 seconds and immediately said, "Well, we have two options. We can put him under anethesia and take out the wax or we can restrain him and take it out now." Always up for an excuse to torture my kids, I went for the restraint. We held him down and the ENT pulled out enough wax to fill up the lid of a toothpaste tube. I said, "That's a lot, right? I was right about it being a lot, right?" He said, "Yes, that's a lot but I still have to rinse it and use the vacuum." So he rinsed, vacuumed, and went back in for more. That's when he pulled out this long cylinder shaped mass and said, "That can't be wax. He must have had an obstruction in there." Then he tore it up and said, "That is wax. That's ridiculous. I'm not saying this to attack anyone, but as a general comment, this should have NEVER gotten this far. This is the size of a cigarette butt. This should have been removed a long time ago. Are you not taking him in to the pediatrician for normal checkups?" And of course, I went on and on about all of the times that I BEG them to take out the wax and they keep telling me to use the over the counter drops. He said, "No, this is serious. I can't even tell if he has an infection in this ear because the wax was so tightly jammed against the canal and drum." So he took more out of the other ear and saw that that drum AND that canal was inflamed. My poor little dude. For real! That must have been uncomfortable AND painful.

Now we have to go back every three months to get his wax removed and back in 6 weeks for him to have a hearing screening. I swear to you, what in the world? I thought kids were just for Christmas card photos and fun crafts. All of this extra stuff is REALLY starting to get in the way of my pursuit of my talents. I'm thinking about trying out for "So You Think You Can Dance" this year. What do you think?

This photo is an exact replica of the size of the wax chunk that was in the Little Master's ear. No joke.