Reanie developed an ear ache Wednesday night. Took a look inside her ear, couldn't see much, but put in some homeopathic ear drop stuff thinking that because we bought it at Whole Foods, it probably won't hurt her if it wasn't the right thing. It was still bothering her, but she seemed a little better Thursday morning, and she wanted to go to school. So she did.
The school nurse called around 12:30 letting me know that Reanie was in her office and had a touch of fever and that she definitely had an ear infection.
She looked like she was hurting, and she was not nearly as chipper as normal. When we were getting in the jeep to head home, she asked if we could go to Daveed's office. It was that random. It was that sweet.
When we got home I looked in her ear and saw that there was a lot of gunk. Her ear was very obviously infected and it needed to be cleaned out. She was going along with me just fine, but she was understandably concerned that I was about to put a sticky pointy thing in her ear that was already hurting. With the sweetest and worriedest and almost scardiest eyes, she sat there and leaned over so I could get the gunk out.
She winced as I put the instrument close to her ear, even without touching. We tried a few things to calm her. We talked about the difference between feeling pain, being hurt, and discomfort, and that while this might be unpleasant for just a bit, she would actually feel a lot better when we were done. She trusted me to go on, which is a powerful thing.
The wincing continued, and we got more gunk than I thought was possible for someone to have in such little ears. I considered stopping, because the anxiety was still there, and every touch had her jump a little, and we'd clearly made a lot of progress.
But I made one more effort, and the ensuing jump that followed touching (I wasn't digging or scraping) an infected and inflamed part caused me to catch her in just the wrong way, and her ear started to bleed. I hurt her. She didn't throw a fit or scream (she never has), but the tears were flowing freely, and she was whimpering, and she was scared. Really scared. And she was hurting.
She told me she was done and that she was ready to take a nap. She was ready to go outside and play. She wanted to do her homework. She wanted to be anywhere but on that bathroom counter. And now I had to convince her to let me work even more on her ear to stop the bleeding and clean it up.
The pieces of my broken heart could be swept up off of the tile floor. She was fighting with herself to let me fix it, to trust me, but also by being scared and by being in pain. I would have done anything to take the pain away from her and carry it myself.
It was getting to the point where I really needed to leave to pick up Buddy from school, but Reanie's ear was still bleeding. I tried to reason with her that I was only using cotton to clean up, but at that point, no amount of reason or promise of pink yogurt covered pretzels was going to trump that something just got stuck in my ear and it hurt when you said it wouldn't.
She wasn't mad. I think I would have felt better if she were. Having had to hold my kid down for medicine or to clean a wound is not on the top ten list of "Cool things you get to do when you are a parent", and I did not want this to be a trauma thing. Anymore than it already had been.
We did get her ear cleaned out and treated. She did stop crying. I did not have to hold her down. When I told her that we needed to go get Buddy, she said she wanted to stay at home. She's 5yr old, and even though I'm only walking a few minutes down the road and we are in a very safe area, I wasn't keen on leaving her at home alone, no matter what Barbie Princess dvd was playing. She insisted, though. Really insisted.
I was already 5 minutes late, and I refuse to drive the half mile down the road to pick him up, so I told her to look out the window and watch me. She'd be able to see me for all but about 8 minutes of the round trip.
When I got home, she was crying, hard and loud, and sitting in a corner with her knees up to her chest. Peter Damian suddenly seemed like he had it correctly figured out.
I picked her up and held her in a way I haven't held her in years, aside from carrying her from the car to bed after a trip when she was asleep. I put together the kids' snack while holding her and she fell asleep. When I put her down on the bed, she reached up, still with her eyes closed, to be held some more, so I held her some more.
My concern beyond the obvious was that maybe it really was time to go to the doctor or even hospital. I initially took on treating her not because I think I know more about treating her than a doctor, but because we don't have insurance and the thought of taking her in to pay the nurses to clean out her ear seemed rather ridiculous. But I'd just made her ear bleed and caused her even more pain while trying to help her, which is ridiculous in its own right.
Buddy called out from the table to tell me that he was being sweet and sitting at the table to eat snack. that doesn't seem like it fits, but it really does, because it was his way to show that he was helping.
I carried Reanie back into the dining room to tell Buddy "thank you", and Reanie told Buddy, "Daddy cleaned my ear. It was hurting but it is starting to feel better." And then she asked me if she could take a nap in my bed on my pillow. "Of course you can", I said.
She slept for the next 3 hours, and I stayed there with her, just watching her sleep.
With some trepidation, she let me check her ear again before bed. This morning she was happy and bouncing and said that her ear felt better and that "it only hurts when you touch it here." It's about noon as I post this, and I haven't had a call from the school or CPS yet.
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