Week of Three Doctors

This week Nicholas ended up having three separate visits to doctors. Ick. The end conclusion is that he has an ear infection that won't go away, had a related pink eye, and a virus that is a respiratory version of a cold and can develop into a breathing problem. Yeah, fun.

Monday afternoon when I picked him up from school his right eye was very gunky and I could tell just by looking at the type of gunk that by morning he would clearly have pink eye. I have lost track of how many times he has had pink eye, but it has been at least 4 times, so I can spot the difference between normal gunk and pink eye gunk. Don't ask me to describe it--there is something slightly different about both the consistency and the color.

Anyway, Tuesday morning his eye was still not really pink, but it was definitely worse and since each of the past few times he has had pink eye he has also had an ear infection that he showed no symptoms of, I decided to take him to the doctor's office instead of just wiping his eye and sending him to school (which I could have gotten away with since his eye wasn't pink).

So I made a plan with my mom: I would take him to the earliest appointment I could get, drop him off at their house on my way into work since he couldn't go to school with pinkeye (their house is 35 minutes away, but actually on my way to College Park), and get to office hours only a little late. She would then watch him for the day and bring him up when they came up for dinner that evening (already planned--we were celebrating my dad's birthday). Mom to the rescue. Okay, I can make this work. I got a 9:45 appointment for Nicholas and sent an email to my students (all 240 of them) changing my office hours from 10-1 to 12-3. Not that they come, but between weather and Nicholas illnesses I have had to cancel a bunch already this semester and that just starts to send a bad message.

I only managed to get in to go to the doctor because we were supposed to have an ear check sometime this week since his ear infection from a month ago still hadn't cleared up as of a couple weeks ago. Otherwise since he had no fever they wanted to say it was just pink eye and so to just give him the eye drops and not bring him in and risk infecting everyone else. But I was insistent--he rarely has a fever with an ear infection and doesn't pull on his ears but he almost always has an ear infection with pink eye. We've been through this before. You tell me not to bring him in. I eventually find some way to weasel him in knowing things aren't right, the doctor looks in his ears and gives an exclamation that quite literally once was "oh my God!" Just trust me, people, okay??!!

So we go to the doctor and yep, ear infection and pink eye. The working theory was that it is still a continuation of the pair from whenever this all began a month or 6 weeks ago. The pink eye clears up but because the ear infection doesn't the infected congestion ends up back in his eye and reinfects it. So they prescribe him still another antibiotic and declare that it is time to go see the Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor.

I take the prescription, get in the car, and start the drive to my parents' house. At this point I am pretty frazzled. Going to ENT is the path towards tubes, we can't get his ears to clear up, because he doesn't show symptoms it is very possible his ears have been infected for months on end with no treatment, he has been on antibiotics with few breaks for nearing months at this point. This is all enough to send my brain to bad places. And add to that, the doctor's office was super behind and so I will have to race to drop him off and get to work to make even the revised office hours time. And when in the world am I going to get his prescription filled?!

So I have Joe call to get an ENT appointment, with the goal of Th/F when I don't teach. They won't see him while he is on antibiotics so our choices were 3:45 that afternoon (they had a last minute cancellation and we hadn't yet started the antibiotics for this round) or to wait for 10 days. Despite the logistical headaches, that was an easy choice.

Joe teaches Tuesday afternoons so I had to be back in Baltimore County for a 3:45 appointment. (It is an hour and a half drive each way, keep in mind, and a little longer with the stop by my parents'.) Drop Nicholas off with my mom, race to College Park (without speeding on Rte 1--I've gotten caught by speed cameras three too many times) trying not to go batty when pothole crews had two lanes closed on I-95, have 2 hours of office hours (yet another email to 240 students changing the schedule), race back to my parents' house, throw Nicholas and his stuff in the car, book it up to the doctor's office. We made it--score! And even with 10 minutes to spare.

And then we waited. And waited. And waited. After 75 minutes they finally call us back. Then another 15 minutes and we see the doctor. Any day this long of a wait with a toddler wouldn't be easy, but we had both had a rough day already at that point (including a really bad nap on Nicholas' part) and to say I was hanging by a thread is an understatement.

The doctor was a very nice man and really good with Nicholas. He was also reassuring that there are still a few hopes before we get to tubes. Granted, his best hope was just that as the weather warms up things will clear up on their own. But he swears this often happens and so this time of year adopts something of a wait and see approach with close monitoring. He thinks that Nicholas has an infection in his nasal passages that just can't get all the way cleared out and so is backing up both his ears and eyes, causing the continued bouts of both pink eye and ear infections. So in addition to the oral antibiotic and the antibiotic eye drop he added a nasal spray to try to open up the nasal passages so that stuff can finally clear out. The image is pretty gross, I know, but it makes some sense and is non-invasive, so I'm hoping that will do it. We're going back in 2 weeks and he'll check on progress.

So Tuesday was pretty crazy. But it all worked out. We got into the ENT. My mom was able to jump in and help out so I didn't have to cancel office hours entirely, we got Nicholas' new prescription filled, and had a new plan. I was exhausted, behind for prep for Wednesday's classes, but cautiously optimistic.

And then this morning Nicholas woke up with a fever. Nothing awful, but definitely a fever. He was cranky and clingy and off all morning. 100.5 when we took his temp. So we called the doctor. I was convinced the new antibiotic wasn't working and his ear infection had gotten worse. And we're supposed to get on a plane first thing Monday morning. Much to my surprise they didn't give Joe crap about bringing Nicholas in. Of course by the time we got in his fever had gone down dramatically, but at that point I was going to have someone look in his ears if I had to break down into tears in the waiting room.

The good news is that the doctor saw progress in his ears. They weren't perfect, but the left ear was "almost cleared up" and the right ear had made some progress and for where we are in the antibiotic cycle the doctor was happy with his ears.

The bad news is that when he listened to Nicholas' breathing just as a matter of course he discovered the reason for the fever. He turned to us and said, "How long has he been breathing like this?" To which I responded, "Like what? I don't notice anything different, so possibly forever. What's wrong?" Apparently he was wheezing. It wasn't bad--as I said, I couldn't even perceive it. But between the breathing and the fever and his magic doctor skills, the doctor decided he has RSV, which is a respiratory virus like a cold but that causes wheezing. Or something like that. A virus version of bronchitis, or in that family. In infants it can be really bad (he said they've been admitting bunches of babies to the hospital for it recently because there is an "epidemic" of it going around), but it is less serious in toddlers.

He tried an asthma treatment on him to see if that would help, but it did absolutely nothing. While it was aggravating to have to fight Nicholas to hold a mask over his face for 5 minutes and have it not help at all, the good thing about this is that it means he doesn't have asthma. Since that didn't work, the doctor basically sent us home with a "If he starts gasping for breath call me and I'll send him to the ER. Otherwise just keep doing what you're doing."

Yeah, that is not what you want to hear. But he seemed totally non-plussed. And said there was no reason for Nicholas not to fly or otherwise to be restricted. That other than keeping an ear on his breathing, to treat it just like a cold.

And I am convinced strep is next since I swear every person in that doctor's office had strep. We didn't let Nicholas touch a thing, but I'm sure it is coming. Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

But, loyal readers, fear not, the little boy is feeling good. He was never warm enough for us to take his temperature after that initial peak this morning and has been full of energy. His appetite was down most of the day, but he scarfed down dinner.

And as evidence that he was feeling good this evening, I present this picture, taken right before bed:

From 2011 March

And, really, aren't those dinosaur pajamas adorable? Welcome Spring!!! And can you fix my baby's ears while you are here?