Ear infection, a lump and the MRI...

This is going to be a HUGE update with lots of talking and not a lot of pictures, sorry guys!!



So he got his tubes in about 3 months ago and he's been good since then. He was tugging at his ears a little bit but I was assuming it was due to teething cause he's been working on his molars for awhile now. One evening about 3 or so weeks ago I was nursing Vic in the living room and holding his hand to keep his fingers out of my nose (ha ha) and I felt the lump in his right hand. It's in his palm right where the first big knuckle is. First thing the next morning I called to make an appt with his pedi. The pedi ordered an xray of his hand and checked his ears for me too. Sure enough the left one was infected so we got some antibiotics for that.



The xrays sucked! I had to hold him while the tech was trying to hold his hand in the right place and he was screaming and fighting and just sooo pissed off. The next day they called and said that nothing showed up on the xray, just that his bones looked fine and normal, which in itself is good. But frustrating that they can't tell us the the lump is. So they referred us to the Bone and Joint Surgeons. Finally got an appt with them just this past Monday. Doc said he thought it might be a cyst, but couldn't be sure so they needed to do an MRI of his hand to find out for sure what they are dealing with.



Of course, for a 1 year old they had to do the MRI under sedation. AWFUL! They had to ue the mask to make him sleepy and start an IV to keep him asleep. It all took about an hour and a half. Of course I wasn't allowed to feed him beforehand, except nursing him, and the nurse was very misinformed about breastmilk and I tried to explain to her that BM is a clear liquid (it's 80% water!) and it only takes 90 minutes to digest so the fact that she was going to make us wait a whole other HOUR (it had already been 5 since he'd nursed) before starting was compeltely wrong, but she started in on the whole "it it were MY child I'd wait just to be safe.. blah blah blah..." making me feel guilty and then I couldn't even argue with her without making myself the "bad parent". I was SOOO PISSED. Anyway, then they had to check his ears to make sure his tubes were MRI safe. The lady was looking in his ears and there was enough build up of wax/fluid that she couldn't even see them. I mentioned that he'd had an infection a couple weeks ago and she said "yea, that left one is still red."

Arrggghh! So mad that it's still infected and that the stuff apparently isn't draining.

Anywho, The MRI took an hour and 38 minutes. The longest 98 minutes of my life. Poor guy was so out of it when we got to go back in. He just laid on me for awhile while we both cried for a bit and he nursed a bit and we cuddled and Matt and I passed him back and forth for a bit. After about 30 minutes we got to go home. He was actually pretty good after we got home, played and ate for a bit and then we crashed for 4 hours! He's feeling pretty good today, just is nursing quite a bit, i think to make up for yesterday.



We have an appt on Monday to get his MRI results and discuss what needs to be done. Then it's off to the ENT to have his ears looked at. Gonna be a long day of doctors!!!