I believe we last left off with the double ear issue in February. The Z-pack and decongestant seemed to be doing the trick. Levi went in for a check up a week after he finished the antibiotic. I walked into the appointment proclaiming him 100% better, talking about how happy he was and how well he was sleeping. Imagine my surprise when Dr. M looked in his ears and grimaced. Worst. Mom. Ever. He had one ear bulging but not infected, one bright red with yellow-ish fluid (infected). Dr. M explains that he may not be showing signs of an active infection because, at this point, he may just be used to having pressure and pain in his ears. (Hello mommy guilt, nice to make your acquaintance). She wasn't as quick to send him to the ENT as Dr. B was at the previous appointment, so she decides to try out Augmentin- basically the only antibiotic that we haven't tried thus far.
A week after the Augmentin is over, Lev is whiny and not sleeping unless upright. Could be teeth, right? I decided to bring him in just to get checked. If there's no major signs of infection (fever, ear tugging) because of how used to the pain he is :( then I needed to rule it out. We get in there, see Dr. B this time, and sure enough- Ear infection. One infected, one filled with fluid. (This time they are swapped). Dr. B has us make an appointment with an ENT, and to our surprise they got us in a week later (that would be today). They also put us on some amoxocillin (to try and keep the infection from flairing up too badly) and a round of steroids (something we've never tried).
So today we trucked ourselves to Slingerlands, to the ENT specialist Dr. S. She is really sweet, btw. Dr. S reviewed his history, we got a hear test, they tried to move his ear drum, yadda yadda. In the end, she tells us what we already knew- Levi is a strong candidate for ear tubes. She explains it's a ridiculously easy procedure, he wouldn't even need an IV placed or anything. We would be in around 6 am, and out by lunchtime. However, she also explained to us that he wasn't presenting signs of an active infection at the moment and so it was up to us whether we wanted to go ahead with the procedure. Matt and I just looked at each other. Such decisions are much easier when the "experts" make them for you.
We asked a lot of questions. The biggest one being- is it more likely that the Steroids actually worked once and for all or that the infection always goes away during the course of antibiotics and just returned within a week? We have never been at the doctors during a course of antibiotics, so it is entirely possible that the infection is responding to the medicine and we never knew it. If that's not the case, though and the steroids happened to do the trick, we would be doing the surgery "for nothing". Except that Dr. S seemed to think that tubes were inevitable, saying it was only a matter of time. She told us we could wait it out and hope for him to dry out on his own but we may just end up back in her office in a month.
In the end, Matt and I decided to go with the surgery. I think my main reason is that in the long run, the surgery will have less effects on his little body than the continuous use of antibiotics, decongestants, ibuprofen, and whatever else they want us to try. The fact that the procedure is really basic makes the decision a bit easier for us. We are scheduled to arrive at 6am April 1st.
What I am realizing is that being a parent is full of decisions that may seem silly or easy to those outside the situation, but feel like massive weights for us. Thanks for all your advice and prayers, we are feeling confident in this decision and hope that Levi will be more comfortable as a result.
ktw
levi is 7m2w5d
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