A heaping measure of guilt

For several days recently I noticed a disturbing trend in Ethan's behavior. I found myself having to repeat myself more than usual and his ability to tune me out seemed to be increasing. When I made frustrated references to this, Keith agreed that he had noticed the same thing and we wondered together how to deal with this selective attention. Unfortunately, I really didn't deal with it well at all and generally just increased the volume of my voice. We began to punish Ethan for what we thought was just bad behavior. Knowing what I now do, I think back to this discipline and Ethan's genuine suprise at being punished with not a little guilt.

Two nights ago, Ethan was watching one of his favorites, Toy Story, and kept asking me to turn up the volume. This was pretty odd because generally he listens to movies at a very low volume and I'm always wondering if he can hear but he insists he can. Suddenly, something in my brain clicked. I began to try little experiments to test his hearing. He was sitting a few feet away from me and I turned to him and began asking questions, first in a whisper, then louder. "Ethan, do you want some ice cream? Ethan do you want a Spiderman toy?..." Louder and louder. Not a flicker of a response. I began to feel a little scared. Scared enough to turn to Dr. Google and brave the results of a search for "Hearing loss in children".

Some background info: last Monday Ethan woke up with pink eye and went in to see his doctor that morning. The doctor checked out his throat and ears and pronounced them fine. She gave him some eye drops (2 in each eye, every 3 hours for 5 days...not doing that again. Ever! And now Drew has it) and guessed that Ethan was fighting a virus which would clear up in a few days. All last week, he had a fluctuating fever and was just generally fussy and out of sorts. Occasionally he said his ear or throat hurt.

On Friday things were pretty much the same so I called the doctor again just to get some advice. In my world, this type of thing tends to suddenly get worse over the weekend and our only resort is to dip into our trust fund and head for the ER. I felt spectacularly fortunate because I was able to actually talk to the doctor over the phone and long story shorter, she said to wait it out and it sounded like a viral thing which should be better by Monday.

Indeed this seemed to prove mostly true and I even sent Ethan to school Tuesday morning. His fever was gone but he continued to be pretty fussy and a little 'off'.

TIME TO WRAP THIS UP NOW! So.....As I sat and chatted with Dr. Google and all his scary little assistants, I wondered could Ethan just have a bad ear infection? We've really been blessed along those lines. Ethan has only had one, maybe two ear infections ever.

Sure enough, the next day, the REAL doctor confirmed that one of his ears was bulging with fluid and the other was red. The antibiotics may or may not clear it up. If not, further intervention is needed but I'm not thinking about that right now.

Now, I just have a good excuse for yelling.