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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Our First Brush with Earache

Two days ago, Marguerite was complaining of an earache. I promptly told my husband about it and asked him to check on his way home if there's any place we could bring Marguerite to as I really didn't want to wait until the next day. It was already after 6pm and our appointment with the pediatrician would have to take place the following day. Marguerite was fretting miserably about the pain in her right ear. Now, two things about her: she can be very theatrical, and she was also getting sleepy, so crankiness from that compounded with the irritability brought on by the earache. It was actually all so sudden. One minute she was fine and then she came running out of the bedroom to say she had an owie in her ear.I inspected her ear. The canal was red, but I assumed that was because she kept on touching it. I got a Qtip to see if there was a wound or discharge or even an ant... Nada. I repeatedly asked her if she stuck something in her ear, did it feel itchy... she didn't give a straight answer. I asked her to touch the part that hurt and while she mostly pointed to the inner ear, sometimes she also pointed outside the canal...
Now, Marguerite has never had an ear infection. I waited for it to happen the entire time she was a baby as I thought that babies inevitably got them at one point or another. I'm really thankful that she never got one, but after more than 3 years, it occurs to me that I'm totally green about earaches while my contemporaries are now veterans. At that time, there was nothing for me to do but pray with Marguerite for God to remove the earache.
Marguerite fell asleep and while she slept, I quickly went online to google earaches. I opened several sources and then went back to my sleeping daughter to check for symptoms. Her right ear appeared normal and dry. It didn't smell funky when I sniffed it. Fact though, she 's had a sticky mucus kind of cold for about a week now. Other than having crusty nostrils though, she had been perfectly normal until then.
She was fussy in her sleep, but didn't seem to be in too much pain. My husband got home and upon discussion, we decided to simply observe and just bring her to the pedi the following day. Marguerite, however, woke up and started fretting up a storm again. She'd even scream in pain sometimes (she's known to be dramatic, but I wasn't about to ignore any manifestation of pain). Husband and I quickly piled all three of us in the car and went to the nearest ER. While we were driving, I noticed that Marguerite had stopped complaining.
The doctor who attended to Marguerite said that her ears were dry, but that her throat was a little congested. He prescribed antibiotics and ibuprofen. Now, I'm really leery about giving Marguerite any kind of drug. Since Marguerite had already calmed down and was no longer complaining of pain, we decided to wait before giving her anything. We essentially just wanted to make sure that the earache wasn't indicative of anything more serious. We did buy the ibuprofen though in case the pain came back. However, we have yet to give her a dose of any of the prescribed drugs to date, which is something I'm really relieved about. Thank God yesterday was completely pain-free. Prayer obviously did the work.

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