Sweet Girl

 This sweet girl has been a bit miserable as of late.  She has had chronic ear problems almost from the moment I quite nursing her.  February of last year she had a set of tubes put into her ears and we were problem free for 11 months! At that point one of the tubes fell out and instant ear infections began.  Since the amount of ear infections and fluid seemed to initially affect her speech we went ahead and had the second set of tubes put in on leap day of this year!  (the day we found out about Naomi)

By mid-April one of the tubes was already blocked and commence crabby, cantankerous Heidi once again.  She will always deny that her ear hurts which means she either doesn't want someone bothering her or she is just used to the discomfort.  Two weeks ago when I took her in to make sure infection number one had cleared her ear drum was bulging and it was badly infected.  Either way, she has had 2 ear infections in less than 2 months with fluid building up yet again.  And the once blocked tube is now out of place and not working at all which means round 3 of tubes this week.  We are pretty ready to have our happy girl back and are hoping this time the tubes last long enough for her to outgrow the chronic infections. 

In the meantime I think I figured in the month of June alone we will have at least 8 doctor appointments!  I was feeling quite annoyed last week with the amount of time spent at different doctors until I started listing things I was grateful for.  Some people may think, "What is the big deal with chronic ear infections?"  We have dear friends who adopted one of their daughters from China at the age of 13.  Shortly after she came into their home (the story is pretty miraculous) at a routine doctor's appointment the pediatrician said her ears looked strange.  She got into a specialist in Danville where they realized her inner ear bones were no longer there and she would need to have multiple surgeries to rebuild her ears.  When you have chronic ear infections that are left untreated it has the potential to destroy your hearing.  It was nothing short of a miracle that she had any ability to hear and is now on her way to having highly functioning ears due to the surgeries she has received.  So today I am thankful we have doctors that are able to prevent Heidi from having permanent damage to her ears and hearing!!