Little Man's Bravery.
This morning, Little Man and I went to the ENT clinic to get his ear checked. The truth is, this visit is loooong overdue. He actually had a very traumatic experience a couple of weeks back. I guess I will start this post with that one.
Warning: some photos may be disturbing.
"Please, stop."
He woke up in the middle of the night covering his left ear while crying, "Please, stop." I could barely pacify him as I tried to make sense of what was happening. For some reason, I even thought that he was hearing something (or someone).
"Shhh, please..." he was even hushing like that. He would pause, then would again cry and ask it to stop. I asked him if there was something inside his ear. No, I told him, there must be a bug that crawled inside his ear.
"Mommy, please make it go away," my heart was crushing. I tried to keep my composure and asked him to try to shake off his head to try to dislodge the insect, to no avail. Until I was able to convince him that I would put saline spray inside his ear to try to flush the culprit out.
It didn't work. Or Little Man actually thought it did, as he was able to go back to bed and sleep through the night. The little insect must have already died. Now, we just needed to flush it out.
The following morning, I asked Little Man how he was, he said he was fine already. Referring to this article, Foreign object in the ear: First aid (Mayo Clinic), I tried to put oil inside the affected ear to try to flush the insect out. Nothing.
Fast forward to a few many days later...
Little Man noticeably asked me to clean his ear more often. I would of course oblige. One day, I got a part of the insect leg out.
Perhaps it was an ant, we thought.
Just like that, no further complaints. I would ask him from time to time how his ear was, he would say, "It's fine now".
We even went swimming last weekend. Then I started to get worried. Throughout the day he would complain that there was water in his ear. I could not do anything to let it out. Still, he was his old jolly, playful self. He did not complain of any pain.
Then yesterday morning, I got this while cleaning his ear. I got very worried. If it was an ant, then it was a big ant, given the size of this leg.
One leg down, 5 more to go. How did I even have the guts to joke.
In the afternoon, I decided to check again to see if maybe there was another insect part that may have flushed out. There actually was, but it was too far for me to even attempt to get hence I decided to just really get a doctor's help.
I could not risk any more by waiting for this insect to be flushed out naturally.
We finally went to the ENT doctor this morning and my heart felt like it got broken into tiny pieces as the doctor pulled out the insect from my poor son's ear.
It was not just any insect -- it was a bug big enough to block my son's ear canal! I feel like crying even up to this time while writing this. My poor boy. š
He was such a brave kid to endure having this pest inside his ear the whole time!
"I can hear clearly now," he said.
He earlier said that his ear was not painful, but he noticed that the left ear could not hear properly.
It could be this, or not.
Earlier, as I was in the bathroom, I found this bug on the floor. It looked somewhat similar to what was taken out of my son's ear so I decided to take a closer look.
My son is now under antibiotics (ear drops) to heal the swelling inside his ear. There are more insect parts inside of his ear, as per the doctor, but she would not dare get them out during our visit earlier.
The remaining parts were near the eardrum and she did not want to risk touching it given the current situation. We will return next week when hopefully there's no more swelling and there would be more room for her to probe and take the remaining parts out.
More than my son, I now have a fear that it could happen again to my kids considering how much bugs there are here in the Philippines. I now cover their ears with cotton balls as they sleep.
I have been apologizing to my Little Man since this afternoon at the clinic. My gut still feels like it's being clenched each time I remember that sight when the doctor pulled out this nasty bug from his ear. Argh, I can't help but feel guilty for taking so long before bringing him to the doctor. At the same time, I marvel at my son's resilience and bravery for not even complaining. Oh, I really need to end this post. I want to hug my Little Man.
July 19, 2023
š Philippines
Cover Image credit: Canva.