"I'm not cold!!"

Oh, geez. I am so sorry, Sozobe. What a bummer.

Poor little kid. (Poor Mommy... you must be worried sick, too.)

Thanks, Piffka. I'm not happy, but things seem a lot less desperate than they did at 4:30 AM.

Getting a confusing runaround from ENT office -- main guy is on vacation, wouldn't you know -- upshot seems to be that they require that we see the pediatrician before we see the ENT guy (or a colleague) on any kind of urgent basis. Trying to get confirmation of that (E.G. called first because these people always wig out over relay, and after that he gave me info to make the appointment, I did but it's not until December 5th, so I called the office again to see if that's right, they said "see pediatrician first", but E.G. seemed to be saying something else after he talked to someone directly... bluhbluhbluh...)

Meanwhile, she seems to be doing quite well. Ear is leaking which is gross, and she's way too tired, but things could easily be much worse. Hearing seems fine but could be left ear doing double duty.

Darn. And you thought you had it all set up with them. You'd think that having ear leakage (Neither of my kids ever had that!!! Eeyikes!) ought to be urgent enough for them.

These referrals are for the birds imho. It all depends on your health insurance, doesn't it?

OK, settled. -ish. Pediatrician isn't there today either, but will be tomorrow morning, he'll call. I guess I'll do some online research about the leaking. I don't think it's ever lasted this long with her before. I know not to get water near it (well, in it) and to be especially gentle with it in general, but want to find out more.

One huge relief, she's eating well. Typically at this stage she's a puddle with no appetite, but she's eating pretty much normally.

The appetite is a very good sign--that means she can smell and taste food and enjoy it. Her sinuses are probably clear.

Yikes soz! What a drag.

I'm sorry to hear that sozlet is feeling so bad.

Having just dealt with the medical run around I can certainly sympathize.

Is there no way you can communicate through email or instant message with the office? I know how frustrating the relay can be -- for both parties involved.

Oh no soz! I just found this thread again. I hope sozlet continues to beat back whatever bug this is. And that your lymph node settles itself right back down, too!

Thanks for the good wishes, guys.

Yep, part of what I like about this ENT is his willingness to communicate via email, which is 10,000 times more efficient than any other option available to me. But he's on vacation and not reading emails.

As far as we can tell, the pediatrician will be calling the ENT's office today to say "hey, see her before December 5th, willya?" But some things are still unclear.

Good news is that she's... um... not still sleeping, yeah (typing very quietly...) If she WERE sleeping (ahem) that'd be like a 13-hour chunk, which rocks.

Well that woke her up anyway -- I guess my thoughts are too loud.

STILL oozing, which I don't like at all (something like 36 hours by now), but now that she's had enough sleep she seems basically completely healthy except for the ooze.

Got the ENT appt. moved up to the 17th and her pediatrician is willing to see her soon, think I'll do that just to feel more at ease about what to do about the ooze/ how worried to be about it. (I'm a little worried it means her eardrum isn't healing the way it ought, but am trying to tell myself that if there is stuff in there, it needs to come out, so better to have it ooze than have the eardrum heal back up and trap it back in there.)

(By the way part of why I go into such detail is that A2K has proven to be an invaluable research tool when I'm trying to piece together her history; a couple of days ago I figured out when her first ear infection was last year, which I'd been curious about and couldn't remember, by doing a search here.)

I'm with you calculating the ooze is better out than in, but will be waiting to hear what the doctor says.

Ooze seems to have abated.

Seeing the pediatrician tomorrow morning, and confirmed that he thinks it can wait that long; he'd like to take a look, but not too urgent.

Nice day, anyway, hope we can hang out outside for a while.

sunshine and chicken soup.

Is an ear infection how you lost your hearing, Soz?

Nope! Not directly, anyway. I did have a zillion ear infections when I was a kid, and there is some question about whether the sheer volume of antibiotics I took could have cumulatively had a negative effect. But the ear infections themselves didn't do it -- different areas. (My eardrum/ middle ear is fine, my problem is in the cochlea.)

ooh, cochlea. i like it. i am going to put it on the list of potential names for dogs, cats, and children...

i've had a zillion ear infections, too. they used to puncture my timpany with a long needle, no anesthetics. i was 2. i still remember it as if it was this morning. uggghhg. it's amazing i hear well enough. a bit less on my left ear, but considering what it's been through, it's a miracle.
glad to hear sozlet is ok, catch her in a blanket when she storms by!

Well, that's a relief... a strange way to phrase it, I know, but I was thinking you were especially worried about ear infections because of the possibility of her losing her hearing.

Nah, I'm especially worried 'cause I'm a mom. :-) (I just worry.)

I do worry that since I have never found out what caused my hearing loss, exactly, there is a possibility that there is a genetic component, and the fact that she gets ear infections like I did could be part of that same general thing. But she seems to actually get them far less than me, and hers are of a very different type. (Hers: horrible pain, burst eardrums, usually fever, occasional but not reliable hearing loss. Mine: no pain, no fever, no burst eardrums, just hearing loss and [this is not yet determined] fluid in the middle ear. There is some possibility that the "ear infection" diagnosis wasn't right and the hearing loss was spontaneous and an early precursor of what would happen later. Just learned this reccently when my mom mused "you were never in pain when you had ear infections..." and I was like "Wha..? How did you know it was an ear infection, then?" I don't remember, myself, mostly just remember the horrid pink antibiotic that was constantly in our refrigerator, and not being able to hear.)

It still seems like it could be situational since we moved (sozlet had one ear infection in her life before we moved here), just a bad combination of factors. Like, 1.) central Ohio air allergies cause congestion which makes things more hospitable for 2.) the zillion germs she is being exposed to at preschool.

At any rate, she's doing pretty well now, hope to get some answers from pediatrician and especially from ENT in a couple of weeks.

Yoiks, dag. That's basically what her ear did for her (pierce the timpanic membrane aka eardrum).

She's actually been very good about not stripping since she got sick, though there hasn't been anything said explicitly. (She currently is wearing pants, a turtleneck, two pairs of socks, and a sweater... wow!)

The ooze is back, thicker and slower.

I knew that kids literally grow out of susceptibility to ear infections, (having to do with the angle and thickness of the Eustachian tubes) just looked it up and evidently that happens between 6 and 8 years old. She's almost 5 and tall for her age, so maybe we only have another year or so of susceptibility? That'd be nice...

Angle, thickness, and I think, length of the Eustachian tubes. They grow as the child grows.

I suppose she doesn't get to swim often then.

Odd that you were diagnosed as having ear infections without pain. Was there fever, do you remember?

That pink sticky liquid in the frig. must have been amoxicillin. Nearly worthless when my kids were growing up because it had been used so often. One of my kids has my allergies to penicillin & sulfa (plus Ceclor) and takes one of the more costly antibiotics when she needs that sort of nostrum. That three-day kind is great! Luckily she was the "healthy" one. The other kid wouldn't respond to amoxicillin and was always being given a myacin-type.

My mom said no fever. How it came up is we were talking about how awful it is when sozlet gets an ear infection, and my mom was saying it wasn't any big deal when I did. No fever, no pain. That's when I asked how they knew it was an ear infection, and she said, "well because of the hearing loss." I cocked an eyebrow at her, and she missed her exit. (She was driving at the time.)

Something like that.

Since then I've learned that any fluid in the ear at all is considered an ear infection since it's not supposed to be there, so still possible that they (my doc as a kid) looked, saw the fluid, and prescribed antibiotics either as a preventive measure or... I dunno. They prescribed antibiotics a lot in those days (still do).

Amoxicillin, yes.