Ear Infection

My parental gut instinct is feeling out of whack. You know, that feeling that's supposed to kick in when something is wrong, even if you don't know what or why? So I'm feeling kind of sheepish that instead of taking Oliver to the doctor's office at the first sign of a change in demeanor, I convinced myself that he was just teething, had allergies or needed more sleep. Thankfully, it was just an ear infection, but still, how long would I have let Oliver go untreated while being unaware that he was slowly worsening into a state of miserableness?

Oliver had been waking up early all week coughing and had been rather cranky, despite my attempts to be a stickler about naps. Yet I attributed any crankiness to the theories that he wasn't sleeping long enough at night and that he was still transitioning to one nap. And all the sleep books and other parents warned me that this phase will indeed make kids cranky, and their parents too in the process, so I endured. Yes, he had a runny nose, but between allergies and the fact that he probably catches who knows what by putting everything in his mouth, that's not a unique situation.

My friend's son has had two double ear infections after exhibiting nothing more than some coughing while sleeping and trying to put his finger in his ears. I thought babies with ear infections are supposed to tug on their ears and wail uncontrollably for hours on end. But then Chris swore Oliver tugged on his ear after a nap, and well, there were those minute-long coughing fits the past couple of mornings. At Chris's urging, I managed to squeak Oliver during regular office hours and avoid a visit to urgent care.

Oliver is now on a ten-day round of amoxicillin, standard anti-biotic treatment for ear infections, with a follow-up appointment needed in a few weeks to make sure the infection is gone. And just for good measure, I've been giving him regular doses of ibuprofen to ease the pain until the antibiotics clear up the inflammation. The doctor said we'd actually caught the infection early and since it was bound to get worse, possibly a lot worse, before it got better, he assured me that even if I'd be unsure of whether something was wrong at this point, I wouldn't have doubted myself a couple of days from now.