So NaBloPoMo starts with a whiney post about how Ethan has his first ear infection. And how I'm a sucky parent for not realizing it, maybe, oh I don't know, weeks ago when he first showed signs of being sick.
Ethan has never had an ear infection. This is surprising because Husband was apparently some sort of Honduran record-holder in the area of ear infections, if you listen to him. So I fully expected, what with Ethan being his spawn and all, that I would naturally have a child hell-bent on pulling his ears and screaming in pain through most of his infancy and toddler years. Imagine my delight that this was not so. Although I did make several trips to the pediatricians office in the early months certain that the hysterical colicky scream-fests had to be ear-related. I am sure somewhere in Ethan's medical record I have earned an Elaine Benis-like notation, "difficult" for my persistence.
So a couple weeks ago when Ethan started showing signs of a cold, and as those signs were coinciding with a teething jag that had him cutting about 7 of his own teeth, and probably 4-5 of someone else's, I just assumed the congestions was teething-related. Bad mommy, bad.
You might recall a few posts ago, I realized it was an actual cold, but damn it if the thing didn't seem to be getting better every day. Until it got worse. With a cough. A cough I thought was croupy, but turned out to be just a regular old cough. Lesson learned: I am a very bad detective when it comes to toddler illnesses.
Today I took him to the pediatrician's office, in what turns out to be their swan song, as I have ordered a copy of Ethan's records (which I will scour to find the comment "difficult mother"), and lo and behold, even as I said, "I'm sure it's not an ear infection. He's never had an ear infection," the doctor takes a peek into Ethan's right ear and says, "Ah, look at that. A shiny, red ear infection." See? Not only a bad detective, a stupidly cocky one, too.
So now my little man is taking his first ever antibiotics and getting some serious cuddles and kisses in attempts to make up for my worstmommyeverinthehistoryoftheworld inability to detect that the poor thing had an ouchy ear. In my defense, there was no ear-tugging or fever or anything. But apparently there is inflamation and pus. Sigh.
2 comments:
You are not a bad mommy!We are so hard on ourselves. But really. How would you really know? Quinn has had congestion for a few weeks, which I have totally ignored since he is acting fine. Last night he coughed a lot. This morning I put him on a PLANE for 6 hours with his dad to go to NY. Whose the bad mommy now??He'll probably get some horrible virus from the plane and be 3000 miles away from any pediatrician he's ever seen before....
Just shows what a basically healthy child you have raised and how GOOD a mommy you are. If you were truly a bad mommy, he would have been quite sick, with fever and all and inescapable misery and you would have ignored it. However, it must be good to have a "diagnosis" of why he wasn't quite his happy self besides the teething. And by the way, husband's ear infections mainly came from being doused in the pool or the beach without putting the two drops of alcohol in his ear post dousing that the doctor recommended and he never had the "usual" symptoms either.
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