Olivia: ENT update

Despite the weather yesterday, we trekked to Olivia's ENT appointment yesterday morning. I am not sure what happened to the "snow" we were supposed to get b/c all it mostly did was a dusting and then about 6 inches of ice. As we got pelted in the face and head with ice balls, we made our way to the doctors office. We got there just in time b/c she was the last appointment they saw yesterday so they could close early and get home. What a mess the roads were! I was white knuckled driving there even though I have a 4 wheel drive vehicle and I was swerving all over the place, but we made there and home safely.

So, the doctor checked her ears and her one right ear that has been infected since November and treated with antibiotics 3 times still has some fluid in there which is most likely causing her to have a low grade fever almost daily. This is the first time that after treatment, she has had fluid left over in her ears which made me nervous. This is the same ENT that she had seen when she was about a year old when she was first diagnosed with chronic ear infections and I was told back then that it was really up to me whether or not I wanted to do tubes b/c there wasn't a fluid issue, so tubes really weren't going to prevent her from getting ear infections and since she really didn't have an issue with fluid, what was the sense? We then just hoped she would grow out of it.

The ENT has said now that they want her strictly to be their patient going forward to treat her ear infections. He does not think that the antibiotics that were given to her didn't work because she is "immune" to them (that is common misconception amongst parents), it's that the infection was that severe that what she was taking was not helping it.

What do we do from here? Well, he wants to see her in 3 weeks to see what course this is going to take, her right ear, that is. Will the fluid clear up by then or will it turn into another infection. That is what he wants to see to determine what needs to take place. He does not want to treat her with more antibiotics at this time. At that 3 week appointment he will also test her hearing, which I was so happy about b/c that was one of my major concerns from day one was her hearing and speech. Although she really doesn't seem to have any problem with speech, even her preschool teacher said she has a fantastic vocabulary and is very articulate and well spoken. So hopefully there won't be any issues.

If this goes down the path that I am really hoping not to go down, she will need surgery and have tubes put in AND have her adnoids out. It freaks me out and if we do need to to that, I will be so upset that I didn't just do it sooner, especially now that she is so much older. It will kill me.

I will keep everyone updated. Her next visit is on March 7th for the follow up and hearing test.