They look happy in these pictures, but it's been quite the week around her with these three. Laura had a cold for about a week, then last Saturday was up during the night complaining of her ears. So, I got out my Dr. Mom otoscope and looked and since they were red, took her in. Both ears were infected.
Since Jen had stayed home from school Thursday and Friday with a cold, I looked in her ears too. One was really red, the other was bright green. I asked her what was in her ear and she matter of factly told me play-doh. It had been at least two weeks since they had last played with play-doh, so it was really hard and the doctor had to flush her ear 4 times before it came out. It scratched her ear drum. Nice huh. We hope she has learned her lesson. However, we mentioned this to Grant one night in the car and asked him if he had learned his lesson about putting things in his ear. "What are you talking about?" You know, the time that you put three rocks in your ear. "When did I do that?"
Sunday, Autumn was a bit fussy at church, which is very unusual. Then that afternoon she had a fever. So, we took her into the doctor. She also had an ear infection. It is so hard to get medicine into babies.
Anyway, Tuesday her nose was running like crazy and she was having major coughing spells. Including, one during the night that even woke up Daddy, so after she had one while I was driving and scared me. I finally called the doctor. Turned out that the amoxicillin wasn't working too well. Now she had two nasty infected ears. So the doctor suggested that we give her shots of something stronger instead. She also sent me up to the hospital with her to test for RSV. Thankfully, she does not have RSV (which the doctor told me later really surprised her). And Emma made our Valentine's day lasagna and did a really nice job. Before I went to the hospital, I stopped by the house to drop off Laura, and said I was just going to pick up pizza since I wouldn't have time to make lasagna anymore. Emma does not like pizza, so she quickly volunteered to save dinner.
But I digress, I was talking about sick kids. That night she woke up at 12, 1, 2, 3, 3:50 at that point I put her in bed with me and kept sticking the pacifier in her mouth until 6. The doctor wanted to see her again on Wednesday to give her the second dose. Her ears were a little better. Shots are a lot easier to administer than oral medicine. We went back on Friday for the third and final dose. One ear looked really good at that point. However, the doctor said that when kids start getting ear infections this young, it doesn't bode well for future colds. We could be looking at lots of ear infections or she could magically never catch another cold, right.
My dollar sign in the title is for how much money this week will cost us. (Luckily we have a pre-tax health savings account that is fully stocked, it rolls over, so much better than the FSAs.) 5 doctor visits, A hospital lab visit, three prescriptions, plus I don't know if the shots will be part of the office visit or a separate charge. We really weren't planning on meeting our deductible this year....
