It's been an intense couple of weeks, my friends. Let me tell you. First Mr. Floor went back to work, putting an end to the complimentary breakfast service I've been enjoying since Jacob was born, and effectively making me primary caregiver. Things went well that first week - sure, no more breakfast, or showers, or you know, anything, but Jacob and I enjoyed ourselves. He's generally an easy baby - smiley, social, not completely adverse to naps. But then the second week came around and all that changed - he was fussy, cried suddenly and louder than I'd heard him do before, needed constant attention, resisted naps. "Teething," said the health visitor. "A cold," said our GP when we rang him. "Just give him some paracetamol to bring the fever down". I canceled my birthday plans and we spent a quiet weekend at home, but on Monday he still wasn't well, and what's worse, I discovered a lump in his ear canal.
The GP sent us to the children's emergency room and there we were sent 'upstairs' to the children's ward, where he was admitted. Blood was taken, and white blood cell count was low. They were not sure what the lump was. His lymph nodes seemed swollen too. The fever hadn't come down yet. Putting in an IV on a chubby little baby was a nightmare. By the time Jacob was hooked up to his IV of antibiotics and we had settled into our hospital beds it was 4 am. I cried the remainder of the night.
We spent about a week on the children's ward of our local hospital, where Jacob got worse at first where he wouldn't even nurse on his painful side, but eventually his fever came down as did the swelling around his ear. The lump in his ear canal got bigger, though, and after days and days of sitting around and waiting for 'a bed to open up', we were finally transferred to a specialized children's hospital. There, the doctor took one look at his ear, told us it wasn't anything scary, cut open the lump (which turned out to be some kind of boil that had gotten very infected), and sent us home within the hour.
That was two weeks ago and Jacob is doing very well. I feel like I've only now calmed down a bit (although to be honest, if I weren't breastfeeding, I probably still could have used a shot of something or other). Yesterday Mr. Floor suggested the whole ordeal might have been more traumatic for me than it was for Jacob. I don't know if that is true, but your mind does go scary places when your baby is sick, you haven't slept in days (or weeks) and there aren't a lot of comforting answers right away.
Below you'll find some journal pages made during and after our 'eardeal' (ugh, I am sorry), enjoy.
