Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Of Ear Infections and Other Medical Miscellany

The little man has not been himself this week. A fever, followed by troubled sleeps has kept him home from daycare and mom and dad home from work. Today he was at the doctor's office to get the once over, his parents need their sleep. But a positive diagnosis for an ear infection has all of us seeing light at the end of the tunnel (rather than the 4am of the past few mornings).

Despite it all, the wee man still has quite some spunk. On top of learning to climb onto to various pieces of furniture of precarious heights (and choosing not to heed the lessons frequently imparted by gravity), he decided that the doctor wasn't going to be the only one doing an exam. So after looking in his ears and listening to his chest, the doctor had a look inside his mouth. Now the little guy keeps his mouth on pretty tight lockdown, except of course when he is trying to take a chunk out of whatever appendage you have foolishly left unprotected. Most of it is due to the eruptions taking place across his gum line.  To accomplish her task, she employed that most dreaded of weapons - a tongue depressor.  After having a successful look around, the doc handed the implement to the little guy, a classic gesture of good will. She then turned her back to access his chart.

A critical error.

With pointed determination and absolutely no hesitation, the munchkin proceeded to use the tongue depressor and poke her. In the back. Repeatedly.

He surprises us every day - he is aware of a lot more than we sometimes realize or give him credit for. He's just growing up so fast. Mom and Dad best watch their backs, and not only for rogue tongue depressors.

1 comment:

EdathomeDad said...

We went through a rash of ear infections with our daughter. No fun at all. After enough of them my daughter was able to self diagnosis. She would point to her ear and even tell the doctor she had an ear infection. Being a doctor and her the child he wouldn't take much stoke in her diagnoses. But, he would check and say yeah you do have an ear infection. Glad your little one is still keeping his spirits up.