Sick again...for the third time

Here we go again...

Kevin picked up Caroline from school yesterday and noticed she had blood on her face. He thought it was a scratch and wiped it off - only to reveal that there was not a scratch underneath. So he looked around her face and she told him "a bug bit my ear". He looked in her ear and realized the blood was coming from her ear. After cleaning it off, he noticed there wasn't a scratch or bug bite there either. The teachers had not noticed the blood (don't get me started). Kevin watched to make sure Caroline wasn't scratching inside her ear to make it bleed and she wasn't. But her ear bled about every hour last night.

This morning I took her to the pediatrician to take a look. A week of fever and a bleeding ear seemed like a problem to us. (Call us overprotective.) The doctor looked in her left ear - no infection but ear tube #2 has fallen out. The doctor looked in her right ear for a long time and then said Caroline's ear drum had ruptured. Apparently she had a severe ear infection and the pressure of the infection blew out her ear drum - hence the bleeding from the ear. She couldn't tell yet how much damage was done because there is so much blood in there. (Let us remind you that we took Caroline to the pediatric ER 6 days ago and they said her ear was fine. So either they didn't look at it enough or this was one fast moving ear infection.)

Now Caroline is on double antibiotics (after just completing a round of antiobiotics for strep throat). We will take her back to the doctor in a couple weeks once the infection has cleared so she can assess what to do next. The doctor said the ear drum will often heal itself and grow back so keep your fingers crossed for that!

Caroline is still happy as a lark as she dances around everywhere she goes. And she still thinks she is Dora and/or Cinder-a-bella. We would never have guessed she had such a painful event yesterday because she is in such good spirits. She's a trooper!

Caroline has officially had strep throat, a virus, an ear infection, and busted ear drum in the last 2.5 weeks. The kid deserves a break...and some ice cream! She is at home today and Nana and Papa are driving to Dallas as we speak to rescue her and keep her at our house so she can fully recover and stay away from germs at day care!!