Those damn ears!

I thought that once the turmoil of whether we were going to have to have tubes put in Joel's ears or not, and then the trauma of actually *having* them put in, were past us we would be in the clear. No more thinking about ears, worrying about ears, stressing about ear.

I was wrong.

Everyone had been telling me that if Joel got an ear infection with his tubs in "gunk" would start pouring out of his ear. Hard to miss that, right? Well, yesterday I was handing him off to one of the babysitters in the childcare room at the gym and noticed a big piece of "gunk" and some crusty stuff around one of his ears. I immediately thought "Ah ha! Here is the pouring forth of gunk that I'd heard about". So immediately after getting home from the gym I called Dr. K's office and pronounced that Joel had gunk, so must have an ear infection and wanted to know what to do. The nurse called me back, asked a few questions, and then called me back a second time to let me know that they had called in some ear drops for him.

But then the uncertain feelings started creeping in. It wasn't like said "gunk" was *really* pouring out of his ear. Maybe it was drainage from his nose that dripped into his ear during the night. He hadn't been pulling on his ears, But he had been difficult to get to sleep, so ... But I figured we would do the drops and it couldn't hurt anything.

Until we got the estimate of $100 for the ear drops. Then I *really* started questioning myself.

3 phone calls to the nurses line at Dr. K's office and a personal phone call from Dr. K who wasn't working today, by the way and called me from his home, I finally feel some closure. But I have new worries that I hadn't even thought of, so now I share them for any other poor, clueless mom out there.

Dr. K told me that because there had been no more "gunk" there were two possibilities.
1) the meds that Joel had been on for his sinus infection had nipped the ear infection in the bud and there was just a little bit of infection to leak out of his ear.
Okay, I can handle that.
2) his tube is plugged and the infection is building up against the tube.
Whaaa? That happens?! Why have I never heard of this before?!??!?!! Vision of a tube flying out of my son's ear due to insane pressure of puss are flying through my brain.

Then I remind myself that the tube is about the size of a pin head and will not destroy anything in its path when it flies out of my precious Joel's ear. And that scenario is *probably* me being *slightly* dramatic.

But still ... just when I thought I didn't have to worry about the inner workings of my child's ears anymore.

And I bet that's more than you wanted to know about Joel's ears and/or tubes, huh? ;)