Sick again

This week has been very hard for our family. On top of some personal issues I'm dealing with (which will remain private, sorry) A came down with a nasty cold. Last Monday I decided to take her in to the Dr because I was scheduled to watch my niece the next day and I wanted to make sure she would be healthy enough to go with me. Unfortunately, she wasn't. But it wasn't too bad, just a viral cold.

Then her cold symptoms never went away. We (not so) patiently waited the recommended 7-10 days before contacting the Dr again. By day 10 she was miserable. This was our worst day/ night up until that point. After only sleeping 4 (interrupted) hours the night before, Jamie decided to call the Dr while I was out of the house watching my niece. Apparently, A had cried non-stop the entire 2 hours I was gone. By the time I made it home, she was just about asleep due to exhaustion, but we had to rush out the door to her apt with the Dr.

We knew something else was going on and our first thought was her ears. A has only had one ear infection that I recall so it's not like it's common, and thankfully it isn't. It only took the Dr two minutes to diagnose an ear infection. Thank God we had a diagnosis with a type of "cure." I hate when my babies are sick with a viral something and there's nothing I can do to make them better or to make it go away faster.

At this point we were hopeful that we could give her the meds and by that night she would start to feel better. Boy, were we wrong. We got home just in time to get A down for her nap. While she was sleeping Jamie went to the store to get her meds so that they would be ready when she woke up. Once she got up from nap, we noticed that her ear had been draining. Our Dr did warn us about this, so we weren't too concerned. What we didn't know was that it was going to completely change A's mood. We thought her screaming before was bad, but now it was really bad. We made the decision to give her both Tylenol and Motrin every three hours around the clock so we could keep her as comfortable as possible, but by the second dose, we knew that wasn't going to be the case. The pain meds were only giving her about 45 minutes of relief before the pain would set back in. Desperate, I decided to call the Dr back. Thankfully it was only 4 o'clock so the office was still open. At that point they rushed through a prescription for ear drops.

That was the best decision yet. After her first dose, we put a very small piece of cotton in her ear to keep the meds from draining out. At that point, she was able to be content for the three hours between each pain medication dose.

We're now on day two since we started the antibiotics, and A is a new child. She's playing and happy.