Emma's Ears

When Emma was about 3 weeks old we noticed a change in her. She was having a hard time sleeping, she would get sporadic fevers, she wouldn't eat very well, and she was cranky most of the time. We really didn't think much of it until she was about 5 weeks old. We were playing with her on the floor and she would watch us with her eyes but we weren't sure she was listening to us. We played loud and talked loud and still got no response. Normally babies would jerk or blink or show some kind of reaction. Not Emma. The next thing that we did was put her next to the smoke alarm. Our alarm is a smoke and carbon monoxide alarm and when you test it goes off for what seems like forever. Steve pressed the test button and we watched Emma's reaction. She had no reaction to the noise. I felt sick to my stomach.

We called her doctor and got her an appointment. Sheryl said that her ears were not infected but that she wasn't able to get a very good look inside. She referred us to an Audiologist. On December 14th I took Emma to see Dr. Steve Jensen. He ran two tests on her. Then he gave me the bad news. She failed both hearing tests. She had a temporary hearing loss. Her ears were so full of puss and mucus and fluid that he couldn't tell how bad it really was. But there was good news. He told me that the temporary hearing loss could be fixed but that I would need to take her to an ENT. The next week we took her to see Dr. Keyser at the Budge Clinic. He looked in her ears with a microscope and said that her ears were so full of junk and that the other problem was that her ear canals are really small. He didn't think there was any permanent hearing loss and that he would be able to restore her hearing. He gave me a prescription for Amoxicillin and told me to come back in one month. I absolutely hate Amoxicillin because once my kids are on it I get to deal with diarrhea, diaper rash and yeast infections. We were so happy when her 10 days on the medicine were up.

One month went by and we could not tell a difference. We went to the ENT and he checked her ears and said that he saw no change but that he wanted to run the hearing tests again. We had the tests run and the Audiologist told me that she failed both tests. Her ears had not changed at all. Frustrating!!!! The Dr. told me that he thought once she got a little bigger and her ear canals were able to get bigger that her ears would start draining and if they didn't then he would look at doing tubes the first part of April. He told me to make an appointment to come back and see him in 2 months. I am not the most patient person in the world and to hear that her ears hadn't changed and that he wanted to wait 2 more months was a very frustrating for me. My friend Brooke told me that her dad (who is a chiropractor) could show me how to drain Emma's ears. I also have a friend, whose daughter goes to dance with Ashlyn, does foot zoning and gave me a little bottle with pure lavender oil which is supposed to be good for colds, fevers, sleep, and those kinds of things. We were willing to try both of those things. Dr. Drew showed us how to drain her ears; which is not hard at all. I have noticed a little but of drainage from doing this. I rubbed the lavender oil around her ears and then put some on a q-tip and put a little in her ears. The night that we did this was the worst night of all. My friend told me to try it just around her ears. So between those two things we have noticed a little bit of a difference. My foot zoning friend said that she would zone Emma's feet if we wanted her to. I showed her Emma's feet and she showed my where your ear zone is on your feet. Emma's is so swollen. I couldn't believe it. Hopefully by having her feet zoned, draining her ears, and the lavender oil she will not have to have tubes put in.

We are so grateful for everyone who has kept Emma and our family in your prayers. Emma amazes me so much. Even though she cannot hear us she is such an extremely happy, smiley baby. We love her so much!!