Ear-itated

It's been a long few days packed with a cranky child and little sleep.  And if you know anything about me, you should know by now that sleep is one of my very favorite things in the whole wide world.  I need 8-10 hours sleep every night.  Not only because I like it, but because my psychiatrist says so.  So sayeth the psychiatrist!  Let my people go...to sleep!  Unfortunately, Tyson thinks that sleep is overrated lately...

On Friday night, Tyson started acting strange.  He got this terrified look on his face. Huge wide eyes, quivering chin, knitted eye brows.  It's the look he gets when he sees a puppet person (don't know what we will do when we go to Disney World some day and he is face to face with Mickey Mouse!).  Lots of things scare Tyson, and rightfully so, but I have never faced one that I have not been able to fix in one way or another.  This time, he was scared of something and for some reason, he just did not know how to voice what was going on.

I knew something was wrong.  He stuck his finger in his right ear and he screamed, cried and whined.  Nothing I did made him stop .  He said, "No!" over and over again as if I was torturing him, and I wasn't even touching him.  He wanted me to do something, but didn't know what to tell me to do to fix whatever it was that was wrong.  I asked him if he didn't feel good, if his ear was hurting.  He said, "No!"  I ended up holding him and rocking him, whispering to him and shushing him, letting him cry and cry, just not knowing what to do.  He ended up falling asleep of exhaustion after a couple hours of this.

I had some work to do that evening, so when he fell asleep, I bundled him in a blanket and put him on the recliner, somewhere he actually sleeps often.  He was fine for a little while.  Enough for me to write the blog about the dress shopping.  And then Ernie jumped up on the chair and scared the crap out of him, making him jump and land face first on the floor.  So now, my poor little guy was uncomfortable or hurt in some way I could not figure out, and he was rudely awakened by a floor flying towards his face. Poor baby!

I scooped him up and comforted him.  Remarkably, I got him to fall asleep again.  I had a photo shoot the next morning with a sweet three month old baby girl, so I had planned on using this evening to crochet a little Easter bonnet for her.  It's quite difficult to crochet with a 4.5 year old draped across your chest and lap who cries every time you move your arms from around him.  So that plan was shot.  I ended up just giving in and wanting to take him to bed with me.  I should mention that Luke was working and the boys were in bed sleeping already and Annie was at Eric's (her bio dad), so it was just me and Ty.  I figured Ty would just snuggle up to me in bed and go to sleep.  He's done it quite often while Luke is patrolling the mean streets of Lakeview.

I laid him on the chair for just a minute so I could go to the bathroom before we headed up to bed.  As soon as I was out of sight, he screamed bloody murder, yelling, "MOMMY!" over and over again as if someone was kidnapping him.  This is NOT something Ty does EVER!  He very easily separates from me when going to school or when someone is babysitting.  I have never ever seen him cry for me like that.  My heart broke.  I peed as fast as I could then curled him up in my arms and brought him up to my bed.

I spent the next 3.5 hours trying to console him not knowing exactly what was the problem.  He said "No" to everything, the cartoons I put on the TV for him, turning the light off, laying on Daddy's pillow, having the blanket on, calling Gramma (obviously something is very wrong if he does not want to talk to Gramma)...  He even screamed bloody murder if I closed my eyes, as I was falling asleep.  I just kept telling myself I needed to get through this night and tomorrow we would figure out what in the world was causing the problem. 

He woke up yesterday morning giving me only about 5 hours of sleep and he was just dandy.  No problems at all.  No screaming, no crying, no "I need my mommy's full attention at all times" stuff.  He was fine.  I chalked the night's strange happenings to him just being overly tired, needing extra mommy time, and maybe he had a simple ear infection.  Regardless, he was fine.  So we went on with our day.  I went to my photo shoot, and Luke and the boys went to the Easter egg hunt at the park.  Ty ran around with his brothers having a great time, no problems at all.

About one in the afternoon, I got home and Ty was looking really tired, and kind of had the wide-eyed look again.  I figured he was just sleepy from our lack of rest the night before.  I sat in my chair and he got up on my lap.  And it started over again.  This time Luke was there to witness it, and he got concerned.  At 2, I ended up calling our pediatrician's on-call nurse to let them inform our doctor that we were taking Ty to the emergency room because he was in pain some where and we could not figure out what was going on.  Because of Tyson's medical issues, she keeps a close eye on him and we are really proactive when something is wrong.  For the first time since Tyson's respiratory arrest when he was 6 months old, even through numerous emergency room visits and hospital stays and doctors appointments, lab tests, xrays, echos, etc, for the first time, I was scared. 

Luke is a stalworth man, but he's always looked to me on how to react to Tyson's medical emergencies.  I'm the one with the medical knowledge, and I have this intuitive feeling about him during these crises.  When I think something is wrong, when I show that I'm afraid, confused, frustrated, Luke definitely knows that all is not alright.  We packed up Tyson, dropped the boys off with my mother-in-law, and drove to our hospital of choice.  I swear they should make frequent flyer cards...we should get rewards for our visits.

When we got there, Ty was actually acting fine.  He watched Cars in the waiting room.  He walked back to his room instead of wanting to be carried.  He put on the hospital gown backwards because that's how the cool kids wear them.  He was chattering away just like normal.  Was my intuition wrong?

Then out of no where, he started it all over again.  The doctor came in and witnessed how he was acting.  We voiced our concern about how he never acts like this and he usually can tell us what is wrong.  I told her that I thought it was his right ear bugging him pretty severely.  She did the normal stuff, listened to his lungs and heart.  Breathing was fantastic and clear.  Heart good.  Then she looked at his throat, and moved on to his ears.  Left ear looked great.  Right ear looked fine, but there was a teeny tiny hair inside his ear probably causing irritation and discomfort.  So Ty was not lying when he said it didn't hurt, it just tickled him into insanity.

We waited forever for them to come in to irrigate the ear canal to get the hair out.  The whole process was horrible for him.  But after it was over, we had confidence that that was the only problem, he'd be back to normal after a good night's sleep.  He must have been exhausted.

Wrong again...  We got home and he was as clingy as ever.  Same stuff.  Same as the night before, but this time when he conked out in my bed, Luke was there too, so I ended up on 1/4 of the bed and just could not sleep.  I've been up since 2:30am...and it's now 7:30.  Easter Sunday, so chalk full of events, so no nap in sight.  And my dear Tyson is still having issues this morning.

As a mother, nothing feels worse than feeling helpless when it comes to your child's pain, discomfort, or feelings.  I can sense Tyson's frustration.  And I can't fix it. It's heart breaking.  My poor child who has many issues being able to communicate clearly is confused about what is going on and does not know how to express himself to get the help he needs.  Not only is something wrong, but he cannot find a way to get help.

Was the stupid little hair not it?  Did it cause some kind of irritation in the ear and that's what's causing the problem?  Is there something else?  Is it more serious than just the ear?  I don't know...and it's pretty unsettling.  I'm giving it today to get out of his system and if it doesn't, I'm taking him to the ENT tomorrow.  For one, I cannot go with no sleep, my body and mind just do not function well like this.  And more importantly, I cannot let Tyson continue on like this not knowing how to help him.