fracture, rupture, broken, sprain.......

These are all words that no parent ever wants to hear. So here is my story............

Thursday was a usual day work, pick up kids, make dinner, etc. This particular Thursday was bath night. So Madelynn got a bath and Kaitlynn and Jackson took showers. It was about 8:00pm when the kids were hanging out on the couch before it was time for bed. I am three feet from the couch on the computer and Jackson screams.

I turn around and he tells me he crammed a q-tip in his ear. I find the q-tip in the trash, calm him down, and make him sit up for a few minutes. He seemed OK until I told him to lay down. Within a minute blood is coming out of his ear. So at about 8:20pm we are headed to the Levine Children's ER. We arrived about 9:00pm. Unfortunately it was a busy night. The waiting room was practically empty but all the rooms were full.

When we were finally examined there was a lot of blood in his ear and they had to get it out with out putting water in his ear to flush it out. If he did rupture his eardrum the water could cause infection. So instead they had to vacuum/suction the blood out. I told Jackson that he had to sit really still and promised it would not hurt. But I also told him if he didn't sit really still they would suck his brains out too (I know I am such a mean Mommy).

All of the sudden as they are suctioning out the blood he starts giggling. It tickled.

He did in fact rupture his ear drum. The doctor said that he injured the part of the eardrum that causes the least amount of hearing loss after healing. So we go to see the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor this coming Friday. They will examine the injury and once it is completely healed he will have a hearing test to see what the damage if any really is. We pulled out of the ER parking garage at 12:30am. By the time we got home, Jack to bed and I crawled in bed it was 1:30am.

As I said before this injury happened on bath night after his shower. So tonight was his first bath/shower after the injury. We were also told by the ER Doctor he is NOT to get his ear wet at all. So the trivia question of the day..............

How do you keep a 4 year old from getting water in his ear at bath/shower night????

You get to play McGiver. (My brother would be so jealous) I used a snack baggie, glad press and seal, a pair of scissors, and some first aid waterproof tape. Needless too say Phil could not stop laughing, it wasn't pretty. However, Jackson was happy he got to play with his dinosaurs in the bathtub. My poor boy. What I wouldn't give for an occasional boring day. Not in this house anyway. The worst part about it was just the other day I was reviewing the blog and saw I posted a few about Madelynn and a few about Kaitlynn but not really anything about Jackson. I guess I just need to be patient and he will give me the material to write about.

TTFN~