Emergency Ear Procedure

Although I think that John and I make good lookin' children, the combination of our health flaws aren't as attractive! My sister, grandmother and several cousins all have ear canals that are shaped as such to trap moisture resulting in persistent ear infections. This constant bacteria growth becomes anti-biotic resistant after a while and causes permanent ear loss. John's contributions are allergies and allergy induced asthma, he did out grow the worst of it by age 16. The problem with this combo: you cannot let the allergies run it's course to build up immunities to 'out grow it' because the constant moisture drip causes the ear infections! AHHH! At 19 months of age after well over a dozen different antibiotics used to clear Josh's ears we opted for putting in tubes in his canals to support proper drainage. This has worked wonderful with only 3 ear infections that could be regularly treated until this month. The last week of May he had a fever and complained of ear pain but I just assumed that his tubes were finally falling out (they are supposed to fall out by themselves after 2 years or so.) But when one ear in particular was looking inflamed and draining puss, I took him in. He had a ruptured ear drum due to a funky bacteria. At this visit the P.A. told me that she couldn't see the tube so it must have fallen out. (Sidenote: Josiah came in a few days later for his own ear infection that refused to clear.) So armed with a new and improved antibiotic I thought it was strange after a week to see no improvement. On Wed. Josh woke up with blood coming out of both of his ears, so we went back to the Doc's and were sent to the ENT specialist that put his tubes in. The ENT looked in his ears and said that both tubes were in but hindering more than helping and that they needed to come out today along with all the puss. So he postponed a scheduled surgery and an hour later I was holding Josh's hand as a nurse was administering local antistatic prepping him for an "emergency extraction." So they took his tubes out, drained and sucked out all the yickies. Thank goodness my in-laws were home so that I didn't have to be dealing with the little ones this whole time! He was only in pain for about 30 minutes after, then was acting just like himself again. In 4 weeks we will go back to the ENT for hearing tests to see if there is more permanent damage (he has 25% loss in left) and after everything heals they can see if new tubes and removal of tonsils and adenoids can help any. If he does need another surgery I sure hope we can squeeze it in before baby comes!!!