Even More Kid Dangers

Buddy has no eardrum.

The doctor's words were "There is no membrane. It's just gone." Not a good sign, really. We had a lot of hope upon first inspection when she saw just a "flap of debris." But after clearing out all the blood and wax, the debris turned out to be the membrane that blocks the outer ear from the middle ear.

So, we are on a path we haven't walked down before. Other paths haven't seemed this hard, maybe because have a good understanding of food allergies and asthma. We've been in the ER for croup, asthma attacks and anaphylaxis. Oh, and for the usual accidental overdose, fractures and sprains. Ear trauma is uncharted territory for us. And so close to the brain.

After the Little Man fell through thin ice, he caught an unrelated bug that involved vomiting, fever and diarrhea. Through a miracle of goodwill and timing, a friend was able to pick my Girl Scout up for the Christmas party and take my oldest along for boys club. I happily sent them off at 8:30 a.m. and worried only about my still sleeping little guy who was sick. There was a fleeting worry about sending Buddy out with only Christmas party supplies, one epipen for the two of them, three huge frozen pizzas, gifts for their secret sisters and brothers and bags in case they got car sick. Mostly I was worried that I had not included snow pants for boys club and Buddy would get all wet. Then the Little Man woke with the runs and I spent time cleaning him up, doing normal mom things in the aftermath of a mess.

The little man and I had one quiet hour together working at the sewing machine, making gift bags in lieu of disposable wrapping paper for Christmas. He ate breakfast, chattered incessantly about Santa and presents and where his siblings were. I sewed around and despite of him.

Then the phone rang. My wonderful friend Kim of http://www.relaxedhomeskool.com/ and http://www.chicagohomeschoolhabitat.com/ was in a panic on the phone. I have a strange, calm response to other people's panic. I could hear my oldest screaming in the background, so my response was doubled. Thankfully doubled. A bag of sticks carved and groomed into wands had been brought to the boys club Christmas party. One of them had been shoved so forcefully into Buddy's ear as to be broken in half. Screaming his head off in shock and pain, he wouldn't let anyone peer in beyond his bloody hair.

Now, I know my children and this one has a very low tolerance for pain. My other two are more like me in that regard. My oldest takes after one of my siblings. So, it was difficult for another mom to judge the extent of his pain, but I made my way out the door. Unfortunately, we live 50 minutes away on a good day with good traffic. Unfairly, I called Mark from the car and asked him to Google sticks and ears. I called my friends every ten minutes or so and for the first 40, my big boy was still screaming. I hit every train and light on the way, making it almost an hour trip. He was calm, but in pain, when I got there and looked in to see that the blood was coming from deep inside the ear canal. Not gushing, but a slow, steady drip.

Girl Scouts being almost over and having the location of an ER and an Urgent Care facility, I set to making a decision. We waited for Little Missy and then for the one epipen among us to be returned after she forgot it at Girl Scouts. I left the house with a not-quite potty trained child with diarrhea and not a single diaper on me. Friends supplied those. Friends returned the epipen. Mark helped me decide to call our regular doctor first. We hit the road.


Our regular doctor couldn't fit us in until 5:30, more than 4 hours after we got home. She squeezed us in between appointments, probably cutting into her dinner. I put a diaper to Buddy's ear to collect the blood, set him up with Harry Potter, tended to the flu ridden little Man and asked my girl for more help than is fair to an 8 year old. She read to him, played games online, brought her big brother drinks and took care to keep me calm in the midst of chaos.

Dr. Wu saw us in the waiting room and was visibly relieved over which boy was in trouble. She shooed us into an empty room and peered in. She scraped out the blood, looked with her scope and thought it was OK, just a flap of debris that needed to be flushed out so she could get a better look. She ran out to take acupuncture needles from someone, asked her nurse to prepare an irrigation solution and got tied up for an hour. I called home and set the wheels in motion to tell everyone there was no damage to the ear drum. We were moved to a room across the hall. My boy read his Harry Potter and I worked on a mitten, because my first response to stress is to start a new project.

When the doctor returned to irrigate, she took the hair clip out of her own hair to pull back my rock star boy's hair and get to work. The more she irrigated, the more gunk came out. Buddy peered into the tub. I sat down with nausea. The she got to some more serious looking and said "The membrane is gone. It's just gone." The light she had seen before was just reflecting off all the blood. He has nothing protecting his ear from the outer world. He can still hear, which confounds me, but it is muffled by the blood now. We need to keep it clean and dry, he need to be inactive to stop the bleeding so the membrane can heal itself.

I've taped gauze over his ear. I've purchased waterproof tape and plugs that cover the ear canal without going into it for protection during a shower. He is grateful for his hair covering the gauze. I'm terrified of his hair carrying bacteria and infecting the ear. He's on the dreaded antibiotic to protect against a infection leading to hearing loss, and a huge dose of probiotics to protect against his usual response to antibiotics, getting every cold and minor illness for the next month. It's been a good two years since he's been on an antibiotic.

But how does one keep a 9 year old from being active? He's read probably 200 pages of the LAST Harry Potter book today. Only 80 left. I re-dressed his ear this morning and by this evening, it was soaked in blood. Another inactive day tomorrow. I'll need to run out and get more movies. He didn't want to watch TV all day today.

He has no hearing loss yet. The membrane can't heal until it stops bleeding. I'm hoping for the best. I'm hoping our string of bad luck will end now. And I'm hoping not to end up with an irrational fear of sticks much like my irrational fear of the ice. This week has done nothing but justify my irrational fears. What this week has done is restore my faith in humanity. Without friends and family working together, I don't know where I'd be.