Sooooooo… how’s your day going? I just got back from yet another pediatrician adventure, where I learned (shock! gasp!) that BOTH of Jelly’s ears are chock-a-block full of fluid. Since what we’re doing doesn’t seem to be working, I now have a referral for the local Ear Nose & Throat Nice People (the ENTNP). I am going to refer to them as Nice People in a very optimistic manner, because hopefully when I call I’ll be able to get in right away, and get her on the schedule right away for EAR TUBES.
Tubes. Whenever I’ve heard that word from other parents, it’s been followed by ‘avoid them at all costs!’. I’ve heard more horror stories about ear tubes than bad things about bottle feeding (just kidding there, we all know that nothing is more evil than giving an innocent baby formula). I am freaking out a bit. You know how to tell I’m freaked out? I called the biological father. Yep. You know how he knew I was freaked out? He ANSWERED.
It was not a long conversation, so don’t fall off your office chairs or out of the driver’s seat or into the pool (hey, I don’t know where you do your blog reading, I don’t like to assume). I asked if he had problems with his ears as a kid, or if he knew of any family history. I just don’t know where the heck this is coming from – this would have been her FIFTH round of antibiotics since July. What kid gets ear infections in the summer? Oh, right, one who lived in the pool. Do I feel guilty now about taking her swimming so much? Why yes, as a matter of fact I do, thank you for inquiring.
Quiet answered that no, there was no likewise no history of ear infections in his family, and that he’d been just fine as a kid. I very politely thanked him for taking my call (still massively traumatized that he’d actually answered), wished him a pleasant evening, and hung up. So, either he didn’t look at caller ID (no chance, since I called his cell), he deleted me from his Contacts so he really didn’t know who I was, or he isn’t going to be totally incommunicado. So I’m oddly reassured. But, you know, still guilty about the whole swimming-in-the-dirty-lake thing. And for every single time I’ve splashed her. And also for all those baths. Damn you, cleanliness!
Please, PLEASE if you have had experience with tubing a kid, let me know. But say something reassuring, not ‘OMG it was HORRIBLE they fell out/got infected/exploded and the child DIED’. Because I would rather not hear that. I would prefer hearing something like, ‘OMG it was the BEST thing that could’ve happened and the child had no more pain and learned 3 languages and listens to EVERYTHING I say now’. I’ve had some FB friends post things like this that made me feel better already, so I’m back down off the wall, but I’m still looking at it. I called my parents, who put things into perspective by telling me to calm the hell down and think about what it would be like if I were having tubes put in her heart. Or if it were like 100 years ago, and it went untreated and she went deaf or got meningitis. They also reminded me how lucky I was that it was outpatient surgery, since they had to leave their eldest daughter as a baby overnight, alone, in the hospital, and when they got back the next morning she had lost her voice from sobbing and her legs were black and blue from kicking at the crib bars. Isn’t that freaking SAD?! And there’s why I don’t like hospitals, if you are a psychiatrist.
But still. My Jelly girl. Surgery.
