Friday, March 31, 2006

My poor baby

Another source of pain can be added to my poor preschooler's list of woes ... unfortunately my two sons have not inherited my cat-like agility but my wife's propensity for hurting herself through a deadly combination of easy startle-ability and clumsiness. My preschooler inherited her low pain threshold as well, the toddler has head made of rock and can shake off getting needles with only 5 to 10 seconds of crying.
Back to my point, I was getting the boys together so we could take advantage of the 70 degree weather and stroll them a few blocks to meet their mommy on her way back from a doctor's appointment. The almost four year old was laying on his back playing with a baby digital drum toy when I yelled, "Don't make me ask you a third time, get up so we can meet mommy."
Well I should have taken his genetic disposition for jumpiness into consideration before using my DAD VOICE as I walked in the room because he let go of the drum toy and jumped up all at once and the toy landed on his front teeth.
He is pretty dramatic so one can never be sure how hurt he actually is right after an accident happens, but I could tell this was real pain because of how quickly his crying escalated to five-alarm level. I gave him an ice pop, which I always do when he hurts him mouth, it's a lot easier than holding an ice pack on his mouth. After about five minutes he said thanks for the ice pop but it didn't work my mouth still hurts.
After meeting my wife, he had me tell her what happened (I'm like his publicist, he always telling me to tell people things that have happened to him or that he's done), she noticed that one of his front teeth is chipped. Man that sucks, he's just had such a rough frickin' week ...
Some potential good news, he passed my not very scientific hearing test with his "exploded" eardrum ear, so hopefully that is healing up nicely.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

the Hives / Overwhelmed part deux

My preschooler's ear has been filling up with dried blood the past to nights which was worrying my wife, she was afraid that it might seal up and not allow the busted ear drum "ooze" to leak out, then lead to more infection, so we got an appointment with OUR REAL DOCTOR, the one who is one of the top pediatricians in NJ. He was concerned about my son's loss of hearing and wants to see us again in a week to ten days, not the three weeks his associate suggested. He also said if the ear isn't cleared up to his satisfaction or if there are still hearing issues he'll send us to an ear specialist who'll check things out with some kind of special microscope.

We also noticed that our son had broken out with hives all over his limbs. The doctor said that was most likely from the virus that had caused him to be sick and that it was most likely brought to the surface from being exposed to heat, which made sense because I had just given him a warm bath. Unfortunately the hives became super itchy and his face got all puffy and bloated like he’s been on a month long drinking bender, my poor son has been through the ringer this past week. The doctor suggested children’s Benadryl for the hives, which at last check seems to be working.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Overwhelming

Being a parent has been so overwhelming these past months, back through the holidays really that I've been lame about posting. I don't want to just complain and bitch and moan, but if I can't always put an entertaining spin on parenthood at least I can be real and post about the underside of parenting that you're parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents don't talk to you about because they want you to have kids.

So the illness continues, it seems like two out of five days one or both of my boys are sick, and if one of them is sick then they other one will soon be, and then I'm next, and my wife catches it about half of the time, I guess because she spends more time out of the house than I do. Being sick so much takes a toll on my psyche, I hope it doesn't do so to the kids as well. On top of that up until a couple of weeks ago for two months four out of five nights one or both of my kids diapers failed them in the night. I had to wait a month to switch my toddler to the next diaper size because we had a big assed Costco box to get through before switching up to the next bigger size.

The preschooler brings home a cough, virus or sniffle about once a week, which turns into a cold or flu about twice a month. Right now we're all ill, my preschooler threw up at school on friday and now has an infection in both of his ears. At first when we called the doctor's office they were like just give him some Motrin and deal with it, he'll get over it in a week, but then he got to the point where if he wasn't sleeping he was crying so I brought him in to see the doctor. We didn't get to see our doctor of course, which always seems to happen when you are really sick and don't have an appointment, anyway the other doctor wrote my son a prescription of Amoxicillin, which was cool because they hardly ever prescribe antibiotics anymore.
So this morning my wife notices that our son's right ear and pillow is covered in dried blood.
We call the doctor for the third day in a row now, he gets back to us and says that it's not out of the norm for a child's ear drum to burst (or as my wife kept saying "explode") and bleed.
Okay, not good but nothing to be worried about.
Later that afternoon my son is trying to talk to his maternal grandmother on the phone and he can't hear her with the phone up to his right ear ... my wife however can hear her mother through the phone, and has him switch the phone to his left ear, with which he can hear her.
Needless to say we're a little freaked out, and call the doctor's office again, now for the fourth time in three days which I'm sure they love, hours go by with no call back. Our regular pediatrician is one of the top doctors in the state and he does a really good job of letting us know what's going on with our children and what we can expect, his associate is good too, but sometimes seems bothered and is not nearly as communicative. For these reasons I wasn't totally panicked about our son's loss of hearing because, as I told my wife, I wouldn't be surprised if he just failed to mention that an ear drum "exploding" would result in a loss of hearing.
Well he gets back to us at the end of the day and states yes a ruptured eardrum would cause temporary loss of hearing for two to three weeks. WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE TO MENTION THAT WHEN I TOLD HIM MY SON HAD A LOW BUDGET HORROR FILM COMING OUT OF EAR, but hey it must be more fun for him to have us calling back all day and wasting both of our times.

Something about ear infections that I didn't know, they mostly come from water/mucus from inside one's head not outside, from things like blowing your nose and mucus shoots back to where your nasal passage meets you ear canal, or from brain ooze leaking into your ear canal, okay I just made up the brain ooze, but other gross internal fluid exchanges that I can't exactly remember right now.