New Toys

This boy is keeping things interesting around here (as if that's something new to report). Saturday night, after 4 straight weeks of having a cold he woke up throughout the night complaining about his ear. This is actually new!

A: Ashi owie ear. Tiss it.

So, since we finally have health insurance again (story for another day, sheesh!), I wanted to get him in to get some antibiotics right away. It would be great to NOT have another night of him laying on my chest asking me to "tiss it" all night long. The problem with going to the after hours clinic is of course that you get whatever doctor drew the short straw that week- which of course can be interesting.

Me: He's had a cold for a while now, but just started to complain about his ear last night.
A: My tummy hurts. (Cough, cough)

The nurse puts the pulse oximeter on his hand: (cough, cough)
Me: Hold still Ashi, (cough cough) oh look you're doing great. You've got a 95! That's awesome!
Nurse: No, that's really not awesome. It needs to be 100.
Me: Well 95 is still an A, right?
Nurse: No, more like a C minus.

Dr: Yep, that ear is pretty pussy. But how long has he sounded like that?
Me: Oh, he's had a cold for 4 weeks now.
Dr: Yeah, but how long has he sounded like that?
Me: The whole time, he always sounds like that when he has a cold.
Dr: THAT is not normal. THAT is a problem. He sounds like he's aspirated something. I think he has a blockage and a partial lung collapse. We need a chest X-ray.
Me (in my most patient voice): Did you get a moment to look at his file? yada yada yada TB yada yada?
Dr: He needs a chest film, this is not normal.
me (thinking): It's normal for him.
So we walk across the hall to Radiology. Of course everywhere we go we also get to update records, which is suprisingly time consuming. I was hoping he was big enough to be able to take the x-ray without the "baby torture device" that they usually strap him in, so I asked.

Technician: No, we actually like to put them in that because it makes them cry.

Sadistic pricks!
He made this face the entire time. That's my boy!

And then we saw that his x-ray looked exactly like it did 8 months ago, crappy. Which does at least confirm that all the leftover junk in there is scars, not disease, but that's only marginally good news considering...

So he's taking steroids (goody goody, Ashi on steroids) until we can get into the Pulmonary Doc at Children's. And I'm the worst mother in the whole world, because when he sounds "like that", and his belly is doing "that thing", it's because he can't breathe. So he's got albuterol too. I'm a little scared to find out what fully oxygenated Ashi is like. O2 deprived Ashi is hard enough to contain!