Heartache

F*ck. This is one of the longest days I have ever had. I just got back from Children's Hospital in DC, again. I left at 4pm got home at 4am. *

The obligatory background, Christian's minor ear surgery on Oct. 29th came with some sort of infection. He was on what they call a prphylactic antibiotic. (you know, so he wouldn't get pregnant right after the surgery har har)

Well, two days later he got a nasty infection in the operation ear. Two Months(!) later he still has said infection. In between he has been on Biaxin, Cefzil, Omnicef twice and Cipro HC twice. In fact he's still on the Cipro.*

Yesterday he complained about ear pain, and then his eardrum ruptured, and his head became some sort of nickelodian prop spewing stuff I shall never describe out his ear in alarming quantities.

He's had a fucking ear infection for TWO MONTHS! So I take him to Children's ER (a two hour drive) calling his numerous doctors en route. We get there and are triaged promptly, then we proceed to sit in the waiting room for six hours. I never saw so many terribly sick and injured babies in my life.

My son at this point is pallid to the point of scaring me, his ear is disgusting, and his little cute personality is still hanging in there. Every kid or dingy gritty adult that came by Christian would hop up and offer them his seat, or his toys. Little sweetie. Anyhow.

When we finally got to see a doctor, nobody knew what to do, including the ENT specialists, who keep calling more and more senior doctors (his surgeon, who rules, is still on vac. until the 6th from what I understand, but she's coming back so she can come in tomorrow for my guy)

They finally managed to vaccuum his ear out enough to see his infection isn't what it seems, it's an aggressive cholesteatoma that has gotten so large it pushed out his eardrum, and is probably stuck to virtually the entire middle ear.

Unfortunately it came bundled with an infection that appears to be incurable, and the infection + antibiotics have left him very very anemic and fragile. So while he needs immediate surgery, he can't have it until they get the infection under control, and him in good enough shape to survive the surgery. So they'll pound him with more antibiotics, while at the same time treat him for the antibiotics abuse of his immune system...and of course in the meantime the tumor grows at it's normal rate of exponentially. :confused

I can't sleep. I am afraid for him, dreading the surgery and the fucking million things that can go wrong, and the fact that everything going right with this next surgery means he loses his right eardrum, bones of the middle ear, and with it his hearing and balance for a year, until he's healed enough for prosthetic bones. All the things I expected but was spared from last December come home to roost. I'm not lucky now.

Fuck.

Thanks for reading my long assed vent. This will be surgery #4 for these damned spontaneous ear tumors.

I promised him I'd do everything I could to help him get better. Little did I know it would be so hard just to get the people who can help him to just listen, and trust me when I say "something isn't right". But I understand they can't go on parental instincts alone, because often parents are total hysterics.