Mason had a great, happy weekend and then was up screaming every few hours on Sunday night, not wanting to lay down…I knew immediately it was his ears, again. And again, no cold. I don’t understand why he gets the infections before we see the nasal congestion, it’s always a few days later. Kind of like how Lauren starts coughing and having trouble with her asthma, and then we see the nasal congestion a few days later. Anyway, Mason had a follow-up appt his our ENT yesterday already, convenient, no?

There is fluid on his ears, but no infection, yet. Of course with the fluid there, it can be an infection at any time or it might never be. However, it is affecting his hearing of course. Two weeks ago there wasn’t any fluid at his ear recheck with the pediatrician. We have a recheck with the ENT in 6 weeks and we’ll be doing a hearing test then too. The hope is that we’ll get him through the winter w/o any more infections and then likely he’ll start having trouble next cold/flu season, so we’ll likely end up in tubes next winter…that is exactly what Lauren did…2 ear infections at 6 months and then spring came and we were good until October/November when the ear infections started and we were at the ENT and in tubes by January. The concern is if we put tubes in him now (if he keeps getting infections in the next month), they may fall out in 6 months and we’ll be putting tubes in again come winter (now, Lauren’s still hadn’t fallen out at 3 years, but that’s abnormal apparently). And our ENT told us that the ear infections and reflux go hand in hand…that when they reflux, that fluid comes up and ends up in their ears since all of those passageways are connected. So, both of my kids have fluid on their ears, both scheduled for rechecks, lovely.

She scoped Mason again (through his nose, down his throat) to check on his stridor and apparently it’s “impressive” is what she said…it’s touching his airway, all but obstructing it. She upped his dose of prevacid (doubled it to 15mg) to try to be able to get him off of the steroid (Flovent) (when I take him off the steroid, he starts choking on feedings…the steroid is helping to open the airway, but they really don’t want him on the steroid). She said if we can’t get him off of the steroid, he would be a candidate for surgery to correct the stridor (otherwise, he’d outgrow it by 3 years old or need surgery at that point). urgh. She said he also has that “allergy kid” look, just like Lauren always has, the red around the eyes, etc. She also said that she can refer us out to an occupational therapist who can work with us to give us thickeners to make his bottles more like nectar consistency so he can feel that the liquid is there instead of choking on it. So, I asked how that works with nursing and for some reason she thought I’d stopped breastfeeding him when I went back to work almost 3 months ago and I said absolutely not, he’s 100% breastfed and I thought she was going to do a dance for joy!! She said if there is anyone in this world that needs to be breastfed as long as possible, it’s Mason. She said to breastfeed him until at least a year (which is the plan anyway), and if I could do it to 18 months to get him through next winter, that would be the best. I already knew that, given Lauren’s history, but it was hard to hear that I will likely be pumping for another year. If I were a stay at home mom, it would be no big deal, but I really hate pumping. Oh well, now that a dr. has told me it’s really, really best for Mason (she stressed it I don’t know how many times including telling me if I have supply issues to go to my dr. and tell them to put me on reglan), I will do everything in my power to get him through next winter instead of until September as originally planned.

Last night he wasn’t up crying, so I’m hopeful the fluid will go away. The ENT said some people are really sensitive to the pressure from the fluid and that is likely why he was up crying, but she rechecked his ears a second time during the appt, just to make certain there was no infection. Poor baby.

I’ll say it again…if ear infections, athma, and stridors are the worst my kids have…than we’ll be just fine:)