After coming home from a rather non-eventful day at work, I took it upon myself to continue my nursing duties at home.
I took my 5 year old to the doctor last week for the "crud". (I'm still not sure what "crud" really means.) As she was peering into his right ear, and as I was hoping the light wouldn't shine all of the way through the other side, she said, "Hmm there's alot of wax in there." Well, when we got home that afternoon I decided to take a peek in his ears myself. I'd brought home a portable otoscope from work and did just that. OH MY GOODNESS...I found out where all of the household dirt goes to rest...in my kid's ears.
It all started to make sense...I'd been worried because he was not pronouncing some of his words correctly. I'd blamed it on my husband's side of the family being inbred up until that point...Anyway, I bought some earwax removal drops and applied them as the directions read.
Tonight, 5 days later, I decided to check his ears to see if all of the wax was gone. His left ear looked wonderful, but the right ear still had some wax build-up. Luckily, I have kept supplies from previous jobs. I looked into my "first aid" box that I keep in the house and found a 10cc syringe. I filled a clean container with warm water and some peroxide, and I attempted to gently flush the remaining wax from his right ear. After a couple of flushes, he looked at me and boldly said, "Pleaaase do not do that again." He's a very opinionated and outspoken little man... So, I grabbed my scope and looked into his right ear again...I could not believe what I saw..
When my son was 8 months old, he had to have a bilateral myringotomy with tube placement. (The doctor cut little slits in his eardrums, drained fluid and put tubes in to allow for any other drainage, due to several ear infections that he'd had as an infant..) Well, the tube that was supposed to have "fallen out on it's own" anywhere from 6 months to 1 year after placement, was sitting in his ear canal. I got some tweezers, and very carefully removed the tiny tube.
Amazing- my most rewarding nursing act of the day happened at home. I asked him, after this minor and somewhat disturbing-to-him procedure, "Can you hear better now?" He said, "Yes are you finished?" What's even more amazing is that over the past several months I've noticed him saying "Top" instead of "Stop". I asked him to say the word tonight, and he said, "Stop" the first time...
I couldn't believe that the tube lodged in his ear canal for such a long time. I REALLY can't believe that his pediatrician didn't offer to clean his ears...I won't say anymore.
