It's the Ears Again

My munchkin has an ear infection. Again. At least this time I caught it before it got bad. She had a runny nose, but that's cleared up. On Tuesday night, I noticed her lymp node under her right ear was swollen, so I gave her Tylenol and planned to call the doctor on Wednesday. Well, when she got up on Wednesday, it wasn't swollen anymore, so I didn't call the doctor.

Yesterday afternoon when I picked Tree Faerie up from daycare, I could tell it was swollen again and she was fussy. I gave her Tylenol again and we went off to Taekwando. She was fussy every time she got still or bored, but otherwise she was fine. The swelling did not go down, though.

After we got home from Taekwando, I attempted to put her to bed. I nursed her to sleep and put her in her bed, then grabbed my portion of the delicious thin-crust DiGorno DTTF had popped in the oven while I was putting Tree Faerie to bed. I was 3 bites away from finishing when I heard her call out.

When I got into the bedroom, she was sitting up and waving her arms. I rocked and nursed her back to sleep, then went back to the living room to visit with DTTF. A few minutes later, she was back up. This time I tried just rocking her back to sleep. She'd doze off for a few minutes at a time, but each time she woke back up fussy.

Now here's where I need to tell you that I have a wonderfully happy baby. Tree Faerie's scale of fussiness cannot be compared to a 'normal' baby. She just doesn't get upset easily or very often. She may protest some things, but as long as she's entertaining herself or being entertained, she's fine, even when you KNOW she's in pain.

It was getting close to the time when I could give her another dose of Tylenol, but when I've got swollen lymph nodes, I prefer to take ibuprofen instead of acetaminophen. I called the after-hours nurse to ask her about it, because I've never given Tree Faerie ibuprofen. We were given the okay, so I gave Tree Faerie her dose with DTTF's help, then I settled back down to rock her. When I'm trying to rock her to sleep when she's not feeling good, I put her in my lap facing the television. She takes after her daddy, because it doesn't really matter what's on, but the TV distracts her enough that she can go to sleep. DTTF is pretty much the same way.

Once the ibuprofen kicked in, Tree Faerie slept for 5 1/2 hours! She hasn't slept that long in weeks! And she seemed to feel much better this morning. I still took her to the doctor, and the doctor confirmed she had an ear infection.

But get this - her ear infection is in her left ear, but it's her right lymph node that is swollen. Who knows...

Anyway, we've got the amoxycillan prescription and will be picking it up this afternoon. We'll also be watching for a sensitivity to it, because last time she either had a stomach bug or a sensitivity and was throwing up, so we did the shots last time. And we also have instructions to give her the ibuprofen before bed for a couple of nights until the antibiotics have kicked in.

Wish us luck.