Happy Birthday to You, We'll Take You to the Emergency Room

What? Oh, is that not how that song goes? Everyone doesn't spend their 5th birthday in the emergency room with their parents hovering over them just about scared out of their minds?

Long story short...Saturday night Jack threw up but that was after a day of fun in the sun swimming and fishing. He ran a low grade fever Sunday and his left ear drained a tiny bit. We started his antibiotic drops. Fast forward to Wednesday and he's still throwing up at night and the fluid coming from his ear has increased NOT decreased. The fluid is thin and watery with a very slight yellow tinge much like cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)--the stuff that cushions your brain and spinal cord.

You can't leak CSF through your ear, right? No...no...um, turns out yeah, you can.

Thursday (birthday) morning arrives and we consult with the family doc. He reminds us that he is not the expert in this area and says let Jack have his school birthday party then take him to Children's Hospital for shunt x-rays.

We smile and sing and play with the kids for Jack's birthday and then head to Children's. On the way, we put a call in to the neurosurgeon to let her know what's going on. She calls while we are at Children's and tells us to go to the ER for a full evaluation.

After spending the afternoon sick with worry we were relieved to have the ER doctors tell us that his left ear had a whole bunch of junk in it that was not allowing the medicine to get in and clear up the infection. The fluid coming out was thin because that's what could get around the bacterial debris. They cleaned out the ears a bit and sent us home with oral antibiotics and new ear drops.

Happy Birthday Jack and hallelujah for nasty ear infections!
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