After our trip to hospital on Sunday, I was left with the impression that Nathan would be much better on Monday except that the cough was likely to hang around for 7 to 10 days.  In fact, the doctor told me that Nathan would probably be ok to go to childcare, so I had high hopes that I would make it to my last two (official) days of work.  However, on Monday Nathan was really unhappy, easily upset and of course as soon as something caused him to cry he’d have a coughing fit.  I decided to stay home to look after him for the day, hoping he’d be ok the following day.  He was really tired during the day, but after a long (though very broken) day sleep he seemed to be a lot better.  So I tried to drop him off at Ebony’s house on Tuesday morning, but he obviously wasn’t himself and got upset really easily and didn’t want to let me out of his sight.  So I packed him back into the car and drove home, which I was really glad I did because he had some very unhappy crying/coughing periods throughout the day.  He had a really bad night, waking numerous times and screaming until he had coughing fits.  This morning I noticed some dried blood at the entrance to one of his ears, and decided I’d had enough of not knowing what was going on and made an appointment with a GP.

The doctor took one look in the ear with the blood in it and said “well, I know why he’s been waking up screaming”.  The poor tyke has an ear infection, is on antibiotics three times a day for the next 10 days and then has to go back to the doctor so she can determine if he’s perforated his ear drum.  Apparently blood blisters can develop in the ear drum and burst, which is what must have happened to Nathan.

So I’m now hoping that the snot, grizzles, screaming, broken nights and coughing will all get sorted out relatively quickly now that Nathan’s on antibiotics and getting several doses of Panadol a day to relieve the pain, and we have our happy little boy back again soon.  I’m also hoping that there’s been no damage done to Nathan’s ear drum.

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