We just can't seem to win

Monday, December 12th @ 5:30pm - when I picked the boys up from daycare Zach told me his left ear hurt. Zach never tells me his ears hurt. I asked if he wanted to go to the doctor and he said yes. So a quick call to our pediatrician after hours urgent care clinic and we had a 6pm appointment. We just drove straight there....the clinic started at 6pm so I knew we were the first appointment. When the doctor looked in Zach's ears it was confirmed that BOTH EARS were infected. Zach had tubes put in just under two years ago, but we learned back in October his tubes were no longer connected, but just sitting in his ear canal waiting to fall out....which meant we were susceptible to getting ear infections again. So the doctor faxes in a prescription for amoxicillin. We head to the grocery store next door to pick up some supplies (the boys sweet talked me into donuts and we needed more kids ibuprofen). We then headed to Walgreens to pick up the prescription...and apparently they 'forgot' to look at faxes in the past half hour - so we had another 20 minutes to burn until it was ready.....we hit the McDonalds drive-thru (next door to Walgreens) and eat in the car while talking to Dustin on the phone as he was in Boise for a business trip. We finish eating, get our prescription head home. Zach takes the full 10 day treatment of amoxicillin, and doesn't mention anything about his ears after the 2nd day of the antibiotic.

Friday, December 23rd @ 3:30am - guess who woke up saying his left ear was hurting again - Zach? Wait....it has only been TWO DAYS since he stopped taking the antibiotics for his last double ear infection. We head back to the pediatricians office when it opens. Guess what - DOUBLE EAR INFECTIONS again. The doctor opted for a stronger antibiotic - Omnicef.

Thursday, December 29th @ 4am - Zach comes in our room saying his stomach really hurts, he falls asleep on our floor. Two hours later he throws up in our toilet. Jen stays home from work with him - he can't keep anything down, even liquids up until about 3pm and has a low grade fever (99deg range). He just keeps complaining his whole body hurts, his stomach hurts and his head hurts. Then all of a sudden he decides he wants Ritz crackers, eats a whole roll over the course of three hours - keeps it all down, but develops a 100 degree fever. Jen looks in his throat and it has all these red dots in the back -- does Zach have strep throat while on antibiotics?

Friday, December 30th @ 3pm - Zach stays home with Dustin today. He doesn't eat anything, he doesn't throw up, his temperature stays in the 99deg range. Logan already had his 2 year check up schedule for today so we decided to take Zach with us as well to be looked at. He is still complaining about the body aches. Zach has been on Omnicef now for 7 days - the pediatrician looks him over and decides to remove the tube in his right ear as it was pretty far out in the canal (the tubes tend to block the view of ear part they need to look at for infections). Once the tube is removed the doctor sighs and says the right ear is still really infected. Strep test comes back negative. The doctor feels that the issues Zach has been having the past few days (vomiting, body aches, etc) are actually stemming from him having an ear infection for a few weeks now that isn't responding to any oral antibiotics. It is too close to the holiday weekend to have our ENT put tubes back in and the pediatrician is adamant we can't just let it be - our only option is Rocephin injections. One a day for the next three days. Zach gets his first injection and cries/whines for almost TEN MINUTES afterwards. I've had that shot in my butt before and it DOES hurt - Zach had to have it in his thigh! Dustin carried Zach around for the next couple of hours so he didn't have to walk. Oh - this gets better.....guess who else has an ear infection?! LOGAN! Logan's right ear also was infected - the doctor found it during his wellness check...so Logan is starting on Omnicef (screw amoxicillin).

Saturday, December 31st @ 11am - Wow, Zach is back to his normal self. The boy with all the personality. We can tell the injection yesterday at least was making him feel a bit better. We head back to the pediatricians urgent care office for the 2nd injection. Zach took it better. He only cried for a few minutes this time. We reward him with lunch at Del Taco (he likes the playscape) and a trip to the movie theater with Dustin in the afternoon.

So with one more Rocephin injection left for January 2nd - we are worried we will still end up having Zach get another set of tubes for his ears in a few weeks. Who knows.....maybe Logan will need tubes as well :( Time will tell, but as of right now - we just can't seem to win.