I should have known it was going to be an eventful weekend when, at 7:30 in the morning, my wonderful husband was outside kicking and hammering our lovely new-to-us tent trailer. He was supposed to be closing it so we could take it up to the cottage for our family thanksgiving…but closing was the last thing the trailer wanted to do. In the end, racing against the clock and our ferry booking, we resigned to leaving it behind and daddy would have to sleep on the couch-again. Then began our adventure!
Our 2.5 year old had been battling a head and chest cold like so many others at this time of year. It didn’t worry me, he has an amazing spirit and is just as happy and energetic when he has a cold as he is any other day. What I was wary of though was the chance this may progress to an ear infection as it has twice before. There really is very little in the way of common childhood illness as awful as an nasty ear infection, as many a parent would attest to. His first experience with it was over a year ago and I suspected that was what the fever was about when it popped up in the middle of a cold and not at the beginning. So I reached for the Belladona remedy to help relieve the pain and made up some garlic oil. Dumping out the contents of an old Tempera bottle that hubby had mistakenly bought, I stored the oil in there and at bath time and in the mornings I dropped the warm oil into his infected ears.
Still, there was the feeling and unspoken pressure that I wasn’t being a good mom because we didn’t rush out to the doctor and get him some sort of medicine. Our family doctor sees my son and I once a year at best, so I compromised and went to a very good walk-in clinic in town. Having a classically trained Homeopath as a big sister who was an excellent source for research and info, helped bolster my confidence that I was doing my best for our son and we went to have our suspicions simply confirmed.
Sure enough, he had a mild infection in one ear and moderately worse in the other. The doctor said it looked like the oil was helping and we had caught it early enough. Yay-point for mommy! He then proceeded to write us a prescription for antibiotics, WHILE telling us that there is no real reason to give it since it has been shown to only cut the infection time by a day or two at best. Huh? I am confused…why are we getting a prescription then? So hubby wanted to fill said prescription and we compromised: I would fill it but I wanted two more days to try to get rid of it naturally. So that is what we did.
Two days later I threw out the antibiotics from my fridge with much satisfaction. Zachariah was feeling much better and our family doctor confirmed it by the end of the week saying his ears were clear and fine. When I told him how we treated it he looked very dubious and said well it would have cleared on its own then, it wasn’t anything you did. Ok.
Moving on to just before his second birthday and here comes another head cold as we move into spring. As soon as a fever hit md-cold and his one ear looked pinker than normal I hit it again with the oil for two days and he ate every meal with garlic-yum! ( good thing he loves it) By the end of the week the cold was all but gone and another brief clinic visit to confirm his ear was on the mend. Yay-another point for mommy!
Fast forward now to this past thanksgiving weekend, when my non-vaccinated, non-dairy, chiropractic kid since he was 1 day old, child was into week two of a very phlegmy chest cough and cold. It was very unusual for him to be sick for this long, normally a week to 10 days max. We made it to Sunday night without any worrying symptoms and then it hit. 1 in the morning he started screaming in his sleep that he couldn’t swallow and it hurt. He was only slightly fevered but in obvious agony. I thought it was his throat so I tried to sooth it. He wanted to sleep out on the couch so we went to the couch. He would fall asleep for 10 minutes and wake up screaming again and ask to go to bed. We did this trip from bed to couch until 6am when we took the short drive to the Mindemoya ER. And waited. And waited. And waited…we were the only people there! He was very hot and lethargic now, sleeping only when I covered his ear with my palm and rubbed gently in circles. The doctor finally arrives, is really great with Zac, and confirms that he does indeed SEEM to have a raging ear infection in one ear…not the one I am rubbing! He also goes on to say he could have hand, foot and mouth infection that is going around but since he isn’t in daycare its unlikely. But to watch for further symptoms. Again, confused. Then he goes on to say we should give it 24 hours and see how it develops for his ears as it may take care of itself. Ok. Since nothing is open on the holiday Monday, including the one pharmacy in town, I asked if we could have some syringes of Advil to hold him over till Tuesday when I could get some homeopathics and garlic oil into him. So as we waited the nurse filled up a bunch of syringes with the red liquid…and then some with pink liquid, and handed me both. Again, confused. What was the pink one for we asked? That was his antibiotics and here was the prescription for the rest. For what? we then asked. Ummm…his infection. Hand foot and mouth. Or for his ear. Riiiigghht. No thanks! We were told to wait 24 hours and see how it develops first so if you don’t mind we will take the prescription just to be safe and the Advil and be on our way now. Sigh.
Now begins the battle of the wills. Zachariah refuses to take anything he knows is medicine, even if it tastes delicious. Since he was a baby and on the VERY rare occasion had to have Tylenol or Advil, he would throw it up within minutes of getting it into him. So we tried chewables. Advil came in blue chewables that had aspartame in them. Great. He puked blue all over me in the Hungry Bear restaurant much to the dismay of our lovely friends we met there, and then proceeded to gobble up all my broccoli on my plate. My poor little man was more miserable than I have ever experienced with him and hope to never experience again. His ear was not draining at all and the fever not breaking, even with meds. We finally made it home Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning he seemed much more himself with some garlic oil and Tylenol in him. Until night fell and we entered our fourth night without sleep and constant ear rubbing. We managed to get to the chiropractor the next morning and then to the walk in, where we found his other ear was infected and the first one was fine. Hmmm. We left with another prescription for antibiotics. I have to pause here and add that I am not against antibiotics as a whole. I know they are very important and work great in some situations. I also know what research is showing with regards to ear infections and it goes against all I believe in for my child’s health to knock down their immune system at the worst possible time of year, on the chance it will shorten the duration of the ear infection. However, as I mentioned, we were heading into day five now of no sleep, and this mama does not exist without some sleep. I was done in. We started the antibiotics, more for me than for him! Of course, getting them into him twice a day was a whole other story, worse than pilling a cat. After almost a week of constant Tylenol or Advil every 4 hours, interspersed with many, many popcycles and baths (usually together) and one more very public Zac puke-fest in a restaurant as daddy and I tried to cram some food into us, we managed to get into a steady uphill climb out of the pit of despair. It wasn’t until Monday that he had his first Tylenol free day and did fine. It wasn’t until last night that we had a full night of sleep. His body seems to hate the antibiotics as well as it gives him a complete personality change into a screaming, tantrum prone little boy. So we have increased the probiotics now and all his other vitamins and will be steering clear of sugar and large groups of children, so as to not overload his exhausted immune system, and his exhausted mommy!
After one particularly trying night my husband asked me if we did the right thing in not giving him the antibiotics right from the start. I was already feeling like a failure and sleep deprivation didn’t help, and I started to cry. I truly thought, based on Zac’s past bouts with ear infections, that we would be fine. Even now I don’t have an answer for that but look at it in the same way I look at choices in labor and birth. Would I be content to simply just do what everyone does without question or what seems to be the only choice? Or will I want to know that I tried everything in my power to help him get well before I went with the norm. As it stands, most ear infections run their course within 5-7 days. So did the antibiotics really heal it up or was it everything else I had been doing that helped it run its course? I’ll never know.
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