Lots of Doctor Visits!

Our trip to the ER for Tate's stitches was only the beginning of our medical adventures in the past few weeks.
Tate needed stitches after falling getting out of the tub on Halloween (which was Friday) that following Sunday I was getting ready for church. I heard Canton screaming so I came out of the bathroom to see what was going on. I turned around in time to see my baby grab the barrel of my hot curling iron with both hands and then drop it on his foot! So he had bad burns on both hands and on one foot.
We got him all bandaged up and he seemed fine, but in need of extra love. So Oran stayed with me through the meetings, rather than going to nursery, and in Sacrament meeting threw up all over his Dad, the pew and the floor. Ryan took him home while I did my best to clean up the mess.
Tuesday night and all day Wednesday Tate had the yuckos and was throwing up and miserable. Canton threw up once on Wednesday, but was fine after that.
We had to make a second trip to the ER on Wednesday because Tate had a bad ear infection. He had been pulling onhis ear all day so at bed time I asked him to bring me a Q-tip so I could clean it out, and see if that helped. I sat down to clean out his ear and discovered that it was clear full of stuff!
Tate is always putting things in his right ear. I tell him not to, but it's a habit he has. When he's drawing he'll put the end of his pencil in his ear, when he's playing, toys. When he lays down to sleep every night he puts a tassel from his blanket in his ear. It's always bothered me, but I never thought it was a real problem.
I got my tweezers and pulled out balls and balls of different colored lint, and bits and pieces of paper. It smelled bad, like, puss, infections and dirty socks. It looked like there was more stuff in there down deeper, so I called Ryan and asked him what I should do. He told me to try to flush it out with water. Which I did. When Ryan got home from work he took over. He too saw a bunch of white stuff down in his ear and the water wasn't helping.
So Ryan took him to the Emergency Room AGAIN!
His ear was so infected that it had caused the ear drum to rupture. Which is kind of scary! The doctors told us that in children so young it usually heals just fine and any hearing loss he has experienced will be temporary.

We had an appointment yesterday - Tate's post-Emergency Room visit. Dr. Burton put on his serious face , sat down face to face with Tate and had a real "Man to Man" talk with him. He asked him why he had come in today. Tate put on a face just as serious and said, "Well, I kept putting stuff in my ear." "And why did you do that?" asked Dr. Burton. Tate's response was "To get out all the other stuff!" in an 'of course' sort of voice. I thought it was all rather funny. Dr. Burton told him that the only thing he should ever put in his ear was his elbow. He tried that for a few minutes, which was also funny to watch and said, "That's tricky!" Dr. Burton nodded and said, "So, if you ever want to put something in your ear, just put your elbow in there." Dr. Burton then looked in his ear, to see how it looked. He kind of got a funny face on and asked "They told you they'd gotten EVERYTHING out at the ER?" I nodded and he had me come over and look. There was clearly more stuff down in Tate's ear. So the nurse brought in a big syringe thing and a tub full of warm water. I held a special tub (with a place cut out for the ear) next to Tate's head and we flushed out the rest of the gunk. A great big wad of newspaper was embedded in the wax right next to his ear drum. Tate is hearing much better today. I think Dr. Burton is great! He's so good with kids, and it was a fun visit. I sure hope that we're done with Doctors for a while or we won't be able to buy Christmas presents!!