Ella was up crying three times in the night last night. If she hadn't come out and told us what was going on (which she certainly did), I should have guessed. Up three times signals an ear infection.
Poor kid... she was pretty incoherent the first time up, but did manage to mumble out that she wanted the "orange juice medicine", which is what she calls the new brand of amoxicillin. (The stuff has been pink since the beginning of time, but they just changed it and it really made an impression on her) The second time up was Scott's turn and I'll just leave myself out of that one but I will say that between then and the third time (me again) Scott heard her say something about her ears. I got up, she asked for medicine again, I gave her some Tylenol and ear drops and snuggled her. When I asked her what was wrong, she told me, "Ears. All over Mommy". I think she knew her fate. So I sang her some songs, she asked me to pray for her (I think this kid was born at a maturity of 10 years old) and we all slept.
I decided to let her take the lead on this thing today, so other than monitoring her temp, which was slowly rising, I just watched to see what she did. I figured that she knew what was up and was curious to see how she'd handle it, my sage little 2-year-old. Right around lunch, her temp went up again and she started holding her ears. She then went over to the offensive ear drops (for something that brings her so much relief, she sure hates them), picked them up and said, "What's this?", which is code for any question that may be more appropriate, such as, "Can I have some of these?" She then almost shook her head as if to say, "What have I done?!?" and put them down, looked at me and said, "It's all done, Mommy". She started crying and curling up in my lap and it was indeed all done. I called the pedi and we were on our way in less than an hour. As I was putting my shoes on to go out the door and Ella finished her lunch, she looked at me and said, "Ella's staying home". Bless her little heart. The writing was on the wall from the get-go for her.
So here we are. Scott sniffles. I am still fighting that blasted virus that slammed me a week ago (and after 5 days of antibiotics with no let-up whatsoever, even my non-MD self can declare it a definite virus), and poor Ella has another ear infection which may be the result of having a touch of the virus that I have. Hopefully not, so her antibiotics are not moot. If she gets the headache that feels like an F-14 just fired up inside her skull, I will cry rivers for her. I have never felt anything like that before.
We are relatively healthy, we are alive, we have excellent healthcare. For these things, I am grateful. At the same time, my house has not been cleaned in nearly two weeks, I am still exhausted and am not getting better very fast at all and the trail of illness seems to be firmly intact. I am praying for a string of 50 degree weather. Actually, warm enough to air the house out once or twice would be perfect. Please.
Finally, I have to give a shout out to my wonderful mother-in-law who whipped us in and out of that peds office so fast today that Ella did not even have time to start foaming at the mouth. It was a godsend and my little sweetie was back and in bed pretty much by bedtime. (angels sing)
Let's hope the next blog brings more pleasant news, shall we?
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