"What?" Deaf But Not Mute

I have to blog about this to get this all off my chest. This is seriously testing my patience. (That and the fact that G has been working til 2:00 AM every day for a couple of weeks)...

I don't have a lot of experience with ear infections. I don't ever recall having one and Buddy has only had two very mild ones. Until last week.

He hadn't been feeling well all week, mostly just complaining of a headache. By Thursday morning he had a fever, more of a headache, and later that day he started saying his ears hurt. I thought for sure that he was just getting a cold and had pressure in his ears from that. While he wasn't acting himself per se, he was really pleasant and was still eating and playing (although he was napping, which isn't normal).

I always tell myself to remember the tell-tale sign that Buddy is really sick: He starts behaving like an angel. He was like a dream child last week and was still delightful by Saturday. In fact, I was starting to feel guilty that I was enjoying having him sick. But I was still convinced it was a cold and his nose would start to drain any moment. I should have known...

I was also ignoring the fact that he had gone deaf. No, you didn't read that wrong. His high-pitched incessant talking hadn't made ME go deaf. It was him. Couldn't hear a darn thing I said. At first it was funny. I would tease him and ask him if he liked pink. And he'd just ignore me. I asked him if he was a girl. And he just ignored me. I asked him if I could throw Teddy away. And he just ignored me.

You know when you're talking to someone who truly is going deaf? And they don't know what you said and it's getting awkward, so they just say something. Even if it doesn't relate? Well, he kept doing that. He'd see my lips moving from across the room and he'd say something, just to say it.

So finally I took him to an urgent care facility on Saturday and it turns out he had two raging ear infections. Anyway, we put him on an antibiotic and by Sunday he was feeling great. Except he still couldn't hear me. By Tuesday MY ears are sore from all the yelling I've been doing to get his attention. I'm dead serious about that. It has been a terrible problem. So I hauled him to his own pediatrician, who confirmed two raging ear infections. Who knows if they had gotten better or worse, so we switched him to a different antibiotic. And he confirmed what others had been telling me: THE HEARING LOSS WILL LAST UP TO FOUR TO SIX WEEKS. Nothing permanent -- thank goodness--but a huge amount of frustration in the meantime. I honestly can't imagine keeping this up for another several weeks.

And don't even get me started about Pee-Wee's reflux and the joys of dealing with insurance/Co.st.co/and non-stop vomiting.

And can anyone tell me how to re-enable spellcheck?