A Mother's Instinct

As many of you know that when Bennett went to her CF Clinic appointment on March 20, 2012 he put her on 21 days of Bactrim  and upped her airway clearance due to a runny nose and a drop in her PFT's. He wasn't too concerned about the drop in PFT's because she was only able to expel air for 1.33 seconds. 

She finished up her Bactrim on April 9, 2012. Approximately 4 days (4/13/2012) later she started having another runny nose which was slightly green in color, congestion and a slight cough. As the days went on the runny nose turned more of a green color, the cough had gotten junkier and she started getting low grade fevers. I started putting our sick plan in action which is upping airway clearance again trying to kick whatever it was that was causing her to not feel well. After another 4 days of it not getting any better, I e-mailed the nurse practitioner at her CF Clinic and explained to her the symptoms that Bennett was having. She told me that I was overreacting that it was just her Allergies and not to worry about it.Which REALLY upset me and pissed me off because I knew it wasn't her allergies. I then called the CF Nurse and CF Social Worker and gave them a piece of my mind. 

Lastnight at about 9:44pm she woke up screaming bloody murder about her left ear (this is when he suspects the perforations happened). I rushed downstairs and had gotten her numbing ear drops. That only caused everything to hurt more. So, I gave her a dose of Advil for pain relief. Which eventually relieved the pain and she was able to sleep for a few hours until it began wearing off. Her fever was about 102 lastnight overnight as well.

I woke up and called her ENT first thing this morning and only had gotten to speak to his nurse because he is out of town at a conference until Monday. Nurse Amy asked me to make a sick appointment with her pediatrician here in town and ask him to look at her. Thankfully I was able to get her in this afternoon. He looked into her ears, nose, throat and listened to her lungs. He said she has two perforated ear drums, two severe middle ear infections and another sinus infection. Her lungs sounded a little junky as well from all of the junk draining out of her sinuses. He told me to look into her left ear which was causing her the most pain. He showed me what the perforation looked like. It looked really nasty and painful. To me it looked like a huge blister that was leaking puss. It was yellow and around it was bright red. My poor poor girl. He prescribed Ofloxacin (antiobiotic eardrop) & another bottle of Antipyrine and Benzocaine Otic (numbs the ear canal). And told me to continue giving Advil for fever and extra pain control. Also, he gave her Augmentin which is good for this type of infection. Augmentin makes her 13th antibiotic since September.

When we left his office I had to call Nurse Amy back from Dr. Rizzi's office. I told her about the perforations and she wasn't very happy. She said if Barb Jansma the Nurse Practitioner from Dr. R's office had listened to me the day prior her ears possibly wouldn't have perforated because we could have gotten the abx eardrops started and reduced the risk of it happening. I told her what all her Pediatrician had prescribed and she was satisfied with his decision. When she spoke to Dr. Rizzi during a break at the conference he had told her he wants too see Bennett in his office in two weeks. He wants to give the medicine time to work. He said he possibly will have to close the perforations himself unless they close on their own in the next two weeks. She will be in pain on and off until they close (that is if they close on their own). She is calling me back tomorrow with the appointment date and time. He also mentioned doing the endoscopic sinus surgery and putting tubes in. He will only be able to put the tubes in if the perforations close on their own, if they don't it will postpone the tube procedure even longer. We will be once again discussing the procedures. If he decides to do the surgeries she will need to get 14 days of IV antibiotics beforehand as a precaution then once she does those 14 days she will be able to get the surgeries. :0(

She will be getting the eardrops until further notice which will be at least 21 days but no longer than that. She will only be taking Augmentin for 10 days. This isn't hard on her tummy. She cannot take anything stronger orally right now because of her Vitamin K levels. Also, going to continue giving Advil for extra pain relief and for her fever.