Kobe's Ear Story

The month of January started out with a bang (never, ever a dull moment around here) and a trip to the ER. It all started out so innocently. Maddie had a friend over spending the night and Kobe was playing with them. They were playing that Kobe was the dog and Maddie and her friend came up with the idea to stick a long skinny 'key-like' toy in the dog's ear and pretend like it was giving him medicine. How in the world do kids come up with this stuff??? So Kobe's story is, they jumped on him from behind and shoved it in his ear. Next thing I know, Kobe is running down the stairs screaming and blood just oozing out of his ear.

I totally freaked out. I have always thought and been told if someone is bleeding from their inner ear, that is very bad news. We jumped into action and Aaron and Kobe were on their way to the ER in less than 3 minutes flat. I stayed home with a very distraught Maddie and tried to look calm and collected on the outside(on the inside I was slightly a wreck and praying non-stop) so I could comfort her. Bless her heart, she was so upset. She kept saying, "I didn't know it would hurt him so bad...". We had a long talk about accidents and how serious it can be and about how we don't stick anything in anyone anywhere. :)I figured that should cover my bases. :)

After about 30 min, I called Aaron and he said the waiting room was so crowded there was a line to just get in the doors of the waiting room. Iyiyi! Poor Aaron had to be to work early the next morning and I knew it would probably be hours before they saw him, so one of our neighbor's took me to the hospital while the other one stayed with the girls so I could switch with Aaron so he could come home and get to bed. And once again, me, the stress-ball, panicky parent was in the ER with a child trying to stay calm. I have to just laugh, because seriously every single time something like this happens, the circumstances always work out that I am the one that needs to be there. I really do think God is trying to teach me something. :)

What a night it was. Let me just say I met every weird person in H'burg that night. That place is like the twilight zone at night. Some very interesting characters to say the least were there. Poor Kobe couldn't hear and was hurting so bad and the bleeding was still very heavy. The guy next to us was trying to convince everyone he was a famous recording artist and proceeded to sing some songs to the waiting room from one of his albums.:) I just prayed and prayed the whole time for Kobe. It is absolute agony watching your child in so much pain and seeing the frightened look in their eyes. I tried to talk softly to him and reassure him everything was going to be ok.

Finally after 2 hours of waiting the called us up to register us. And then we sat for another 2 hours waiting for our turn. I tried really hard to not get frustrated. I was so irratated that no one was as concerned about this as I was, and I kept thinking 'what if this is something serious and we are wasting time waiting.' I ended up paging my family doctor to talk it over with him. He assured me that if he was able to hear at all out of that ear (which he was), then he was going to be fine. He actually told me to just go home and let him sleep and then to bring him in first thing in the morning. I weighed the options, and although I knew I should listen to my doctor, I also knew that if I brought him home with no one else looking at him at all, that I would not sleep a wink and would be a wreck all night long. So we waited it out.

At long last they took us back and literally, the doctor looked in his ear with their little 'ear thing' and said, "He looks like he has a burst ear drum and severe trauma to the canal. You will have to see a specialist in the morning. I will get you a perscription." I asked what that meant, " severe trauma to the canal" and how long his hearing would be affected. And he said to me, "I don't know much about the ear, you will have to ask the specialist tomorrow." Huh? Did we really just wait 4 hours for him to say he doesn't know much about ears. Did you not listen to that part of med school? I was so irratated, but tried to just be thankful that at least we had access to a hospital and he gave us a perscription so he could sleep thru the night. (Lesson learned : trust your family doctor! :) ).

In the morning we went to see Dr. Neal, an ear, nose and throat specialist. They were able to give us a bit more information. After an extensive hearing test and examining his ear, he said the hearing test definitely showed that sound wasn't getting to his eardrum, but there was so much blood in the way he couldn't actually see the ear drum. He tried to remove the blood with a long, metal suction, but Kobe was very nervous and kept shaking a bit, so he said he wasn't going to push it and cause further damage. He told us the bleeding would be less and less over the next few days and we were to come back in two weeks.

We went to his check up last week. Dr. Neal was able to get in this time and remove the dried up blood and see the eardrum. After examining him, he said over 60% of his eardrum was a hole. YIKES! We really didn't think it was going to be bad, because overall over the 2 weeks Kobe was feeling great, no pain and able to hear relatively well. So we were definitely surprised to hear that news.

So the plan as of now is to take the conservative route and wait 3 months and see if the hole closes on its own. When he goes back in 3 months to have it checked, if it has not closed, we will plan for a surgery to close it. Kobe was so bummed because he was planning on doing swimming this semester. Poor guy! He has had a good lesson in forgiving. Everytime he goes to the doctor he would say, " I'm so mad at Maddie." Ha! What a life lesson to learn in forgiving and letting go. Bless his heart. So, we are just praying that things heal on their own and that all is back in place and his hearing returns to normal by the time we go back. The doctor expects a fully recovery one way or the other.

PRAISE GOD no permanent damage was done. (Other than I am sure the recent outbreak of gray hair all over my head is due to this. :) ). Seriously, I am so thankful to Jesus for His constant protection over us and walking with us thru life. What a comfort. It may sound silly, but without Him, I would be a total wreck everytime something happened.

I am sure years from now, we will all look back and laugh at this story. Not yet. But someday we will. Even Kobe. :)