Samuel's ears

Oops....Lisa from Blessed with Grace (see my sidebar) just posted a comment that reminded me of something. I updated on my 4th child (King!) in the last post, but didn't update on my 2nd child (Samuel).

He has now been on the steroid nasal spray for 5 days. So far, no change. He is STILL saying that his ears hurt every day. Today he was upset about something else (namely, having to clean his room...oh the horror!) but while crying over that, he started holding his ears saying that they hurt. I have a feeling that, with the fluid already in there added to the tears he was crying & snot it was producing, there was probably extra pressure in there & it probably did hurt!

I talked to Larry tonight about the fact that I am almost ready to take him to the after-hours place tomorrow just to make sure this hasnt' progressed into another infection. I realize that the ENT told us they were not infected on Tuesday when we were there, but he also told us that there was fluid on both ears, which of course could very quickly BECOME an infection given Samuel's history. It makes me worry about how long we let the fluid sit there with him complaining of pain because at any point, if it becomes infected, he could have a burst eardrum very quickly. And without an otoscope at home to check his ears every day myself (I had one in the past but it died a while back), it's hard to know when they move from hurting to REALLY hurting. Ugh. Since we have an after hours place we can go to for the cost of a doctor's office copay, we might do that tomorrow afternoon if he seems to be MORE in pain than he has been.

We're giving him antihistimines (trying to dry up the fluid) and tylenol/motrin for pain, but we've been doing that for over a month now, which worries me for his little liver!! Thankfully we have had some days in there that he complains less & we skip the medicine on those days. But I hate to leave him hurting the rest of the time.

yuck. Being a mommy is hard work!

So that's where we are!