Warning: frank discussion of bodily functions and fluids ahead. You have been warned.
The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a roller-coaster ride around here at the Bean household. It's Mrs. Dave's busiest period of the year (she has several, but this is the knock-down, drag-out, up-at-5am, home-at-9pm, pride-swallowing SIEGE to end them all), and little Ms. Bean has come down with her first rash of illnesses. Because good things come in threes.
First, she managed to come down with a nice little gastrointestinal issue that temporarily turned her into a sprinkler system, to put it delicately. She was generous enough to share that with me (yes, sharing is a lesson we wish to teach her, but as with everything, there are limits), and at the same time, Mrs. Dave apparently came down with the same bug I got last month where I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a bus which then stopped, belched exhaust in my face, backed up, and repeated that a few extra times for good measure. Fortunately, it's quick-acting and the missus was back up and operational the next day, but the Super Soaker was doing her thing for a week solid (or a week liquid, if you will).
Then, just when it seemed like she was over it, the faucet suddenly opened at the other end, and her nose was running to the point where it sounded like she was constantly beset by that little hooked suction tube they stick under your tongue during orthodontic procedures. THAT, of its own accord, eventually morphed into the raspy, hacking cough of a two-pack-a-day smoker, even though we've managed to get her down to a pack and a half lately (parenting is all about compromises). The nose has now gone dry (and stuffy as all hell, preventing her from breathing through it while she's sucking her thumb at night) but heaven knows liquid needs a place to escape from, so it decided to exit, stage right, out her ear.
For those of you who aren't up on your anatomy, a slight digression - the mouth cavity is connected to each ear by narrow channels called the Eustachian tubes. They're the things that crackle when you yawn or swallow - they allow you to equalize pressure inside your ear drums so they don't burst when the air pressure changes. They also help drain mucus from your ears (ew). In adults, these tubes are about an inch and a half long, but as you might imagine, they're considerably shorter in infants and children. Couple that with the fact that they get swollen when you get a cold, and presto, ear mucus can't drain that way, especially when you're lying down as much as you are when you're an infant, and it all builds up behind your eardrum. The perfect recipe for an ear infection.
If you've ever had an ear infection, you may remember that it essentially feels like you have a knitting needle shoved from one side of your skull out the other. As adults, our tolerance for pain is higher and our social skills are developed to the point where we don't go around screaming bloody murder all day, but your average four month old basically figures MY EARS HURT SO YOURS MAY AS WELL TOO. I would have to think that many parents dread the screaming associated with ear infections even more than the actual pain being inflicted upon their children.
So back to the oozing ears of my progeny. Her teachers noticed it yesterday and said that she'd been scratching at it a little bit, but she tends to play with the hair around her ear when she sucks her thumb, so we thought we'd give it another night to see if it cleared up, thinking maybe it was just a little extra earwax. I know, I know, take away our parenting license now, as we are obviously not fit to handle a child. And of course, it continued with a vengeance today, but amazingly, the Bean didn't really react at all - a little more pulling, but she didn't cry, wasn't particularly cranky, nothing. Just crusty ear goop. We get an appointment at the local after-hours clinic, take her in, she's absolutely angelic for the nurse and doctor who see her, and after the doctor checks her out, she tells us "It looks like she had a little ear infection."
Wait...bwuh...HAD?
Turns out she'd gone through the whole thing without complaining, and that the oozing means that the eardrum has actually had a little hole open in it (ow ow ow, but perfectly normal, as it turns out) and the fluid behind it is draining out. So she managed to get all the way to the healing stages without anything more than her normal fidgeting and fussing - which we just attributed to "I'm wet", "I'm hungry", "I'm displeased the Red Sox were just shut out by Robinson Tejeda and friends", you know, that kind of thing.
So now the kid is on some yummy pink amoxicillin mixture that we have to keep away from Mrs. Dave (she'd shotgun that bottle if she had half a chance) that should knock her ear bacteria halfway to Neptune within a week. And as luck would have it, at the end of that week's time, the Beaner has her 4-month appointment with her regular doctor, so they'll be able to scope out her ear canal and see how things are healing. Who knows, maybe by then she'll have defeated a plethora of other viruses and be brewing up her own cure for anaplastic large cell lymphoma in honor of John Lester's recent recovery...
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