Otitis Media

Or in other words, Middle Ear Infection. Who would have thought there would be so much Judith news in just one week? Last weekend she drank from the sippy cup for the first time, Wednesday she walked for the first time, and last night she was in the Emergency Room for the first time. She’s fine. She has a double ear infection. Her left ear is severely infected and her right ear is mildly infected.

Her cold from last week just wasn’t getting better. She started with a fever on Tuesday and it has continued since then. On Wednesday I called the pediatrician and they said to let a fever under 101 run its course. At that point her fever was 100.3. They said to let them know if the fever was over 103. So as you know, Wednesday morning Judith started walking. Then Wednesday afternoon we ran a few errands. She napped for part of the time, and was seeming to do just fine. Then at Michaels she was doing OK when I put her into her seat cover in the cart. Then about 10 minutes later she was suddenly very, very fussy, which is not like her at a store. I picked her up, and she was burning up.

So we left and came home. Her fever was 103. I gave her infant Tylenol, and within 30 minutes, she was back to 101. We took it easy the rest of the afternoon and evening. She slept fairly well during the night, though I did wake her up to give her more medicine, nurse her, and give her some more Pedialyte (thank goodness she had started drinking out of a sippy cup this past weekend!).

Thursday morning she was not a happy baby, but had a mild temperature again. She took a bit of a nap in the morning. After that I carried her around. If I put her down, she cried, but she didn’t crawl anywhere or move herself. At 3:00 she had some more Tylenol and had a fever of 101.2. At 5:00 she laid down for a nap. When she woke at 6:00, she was again burning up. I checked and her fever was up to 104.3. I called the pediatrician’s after hours line, and the nurse who went through all the symptoms, etc. with me, told me to take Judith to the Emergency Room.

So I called Robert, who at that point was on his way to the Farmer’s Market, and I told him I was taking Judith to ER. He turned around and actually beat us there. (I had to get us all packed up first – it took a few minutes.)

They were very good at the ER. They gave her Motrin, and fairly quickly put us into a room so that we didn’t have to sit in the waiting room with all the coughing toddlers who weren’t covering their mouths as they ran around hacking. The doctor looked at her and as soon as he looked in the left ear declared it to be extremely infected. The other one is mildly so. He prescribed antibiotics and ear drops. He was in and out very quickly and as we were trying to ask questions at the end he was out the door. Neither Robert nor I are thrilled with the idea of antibiotics if they aren’t absolutely necessary. But now that they’ve been started, we’ll finish the course out.

We’ll also call the pediatrician this afternoon to see if she wants to see Judith for a follow-up appointment (Judith’s one year checkup is scheduled for June 18).

After she finally went to sleep, Judith did sleep well last night. And this morning after her medicine she was crawling all over the place and getting into cabinets and mischief again. So I think she’s starting to feel better, which makes us much, much happier. Hopefully that trend will continue. Maybe this afternoon we can even go for a nice walk and enjoy the beautiful weather and sun shine. It would be good for all of us. Robert is off for his regular Friday off this week, so we’d like to enjoy a bit of the three day weekend.

And of course, we want Judith happy and healthy for her big First Birthday next week!

Anyway, for a child who had been totally healthy until this point, it’s unfortunate that she had to end up with her first ear infection at this point. I was thinking we were home free to going the entire first year without one. I know the average baby has 6 ear infections in the first year, but I was excited that healthy Judith had had none. Oh well. If she’s going to be sick, at least it’s something fairly typical and treatable. And the doctor said (and we’ve read it in the parenting books) that there is no way to prevent ear infections.

We’ll try not to have any more such news to report however. And hopefully as she feels better, Judith will be up and about and working on that walking again!

We wish you all a very happy weekend!