All that to say the appointment didn't turn out how I was hoping. I was honestly trying to be pretty realistic about my expectations and realized that if two rounds of antibiotics hadn't worked yet the chances of this working weren't great but we went into the appointment still praying that the infection was gone. Charlotte was a trooper waiting to be called back (I've never seen this doctor's office that busy) and when we were called back we went in first for a hearing test. I held Charlotte in a little room with a window while a tech sat in front of her trying to hold her attention with toys. They would then play a tone in varying volume and frequency combinations and waited to see how quickly she turned toward the sounds. Thankfully she responded to all but one of the sounds almost immediately and she responded to the last sound after a few tries. The tech actually told us midway through that he had never seen any child go through a hearing test that quickly so that at least made me feel better that so far her hearing hadn't been effected although given her recent speech burst we knew that was the case.
They they "took a picture" of her inner ear by blowing air into her ear canal and graphing the movement. Apparently your ear is supposed to be really flexible so it should move creating a nice curve when the air is blown into it but both of her ears showed a flat line -- no movement -- so at that point we knew there was still fluid.
We then went and saw the doctor and it made us feel so much more comfortable that he is a close family friend. After looking at Charlotte he gave us a few options, two involving one more round of antibiotics and the other involving immediately putting in tubes. After discussing the options we decided to go ahead with the tubes and we scheduled the procedure for the next day first thing in the morning. However, once we got home and really thought through our decision we realized that we would rather make one last stab at clearing this up without surgery. We know that the surgery is supposed to be very routine and a lot of people love the tubes that their kids have and the flexibility that it later affords them but with our ski trip coming up we didn't want to be away if some unexpected complication were to arise. So we cancelled the procedure and put her back on a high dose of antibiotics and a nasal spray to try and open up her passages to try and drain the fluid. We go back for a recheck on March 10th and at that point we'll schedule tubes if the fluid remains.
Overall it was a very emotional day. We were looking at leaving Charlotte for a number of days soon and also having to have her put to sleep for the procedure and we were just parents, worrying and praying over what was the right decision. It's very hard being the person responsible for another person, especially one that is still so small and can't give us their opinion or that you can't explain the need for surgery or what's going to happen beforehand to. I'm very thankful for wisdom from our parents and family and friends that help make those decisions a little easier but I think that is the hardest part so far of being a parent. No fun at all.
So now Charlotte is taking this medicine and while she is seeing some not fun side effects we're hoping that those mean that the medicine is getting rid of the bad bacteria. The hardest thing about all of this is that she hasn't really shown any symptoms the entire time that she's had an ear infection. She goes to sleep fine, plays fine, doesn't whine except for when her teeth that she's cutting bothering her -- you really can't even tell that she has an ear infection which is really why we made the decision to try one more time before the tubes. If she was miserable we would have taken care of it immediately but since she appears fine we want to try one more non-surgical option.
After her appointment we all went to Chick-Fil-A and she enjoyed getting to dip her fries and nuggets in ketchup and then was rewarded with a "shake" in her sippy which she loved on the way home and more after her nap. She is just the sweetest little girl and it's so hard to know that she's sick and probably doesn't feel 100% even if she's not acting it. Here she is at lunch turning around to say cheese for me while she was waving at Daddy at the counter as he waited for our food.
See, isn't she the cutest? Now we're praying for a good resolution at our check-up. Either that the fluid is gone or that she has a very easy, painless, quick surgery to insert tubes in her ear. I'll keep you posted once we get a plan. But in the meantime, thanks for praying. You're the best!
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