A visit to the specialist

Henry had a good night last night and a good breakfast this morning. He hasn't thrown up now for two days! I know I keep posting all these photos of him eating, but we are still so relieved to see him doing it. We are continuing to give him the anti-nausea medication when he gets gurgly. He is getting an oral antibiotic now, one he has never had before.

This afternoon I took him to an Ear, Nose & Throat specialist. The ENT took about 2 minutes to make a decision. He listened to a brief account of Henry's recent travails, looked in his ears, and said he should have surgery on Wednesday to insert tubes. The procedure takes only a few minutes, is performed very often, and allows the ears to drain properly. General anesthesia is used, which means that Henry will be in the hospital for about two hours.

Finally, I got a definitive answer to Henry's problems keeping anything down. The ENT said with severe ear infections you can have a systemic reaction like that. Although Henry has not had a lot of ear infections, all three have required a month or more of antibiotics to clear. Apparently this is because his ears don't drain well, so bacteria can re-grow in the fluid, even after the antibiotic has killed most of them off.  That then requires more antibiotic, again leaving only the strongest most resistant bacteria to reproduce in the remaining fluid. Eventually,  the bacteria become resistant to it, and the antibiotic won't work any more. Darwinian selection in action.

That is what happened to Henry this last ear infection with the first antibiotic we tried: it didn't work. The infection got worse over 5 days of treatment. This was the antibiotic we have used for past ear infections. If we were to just keep repeating the process with different antibiotics, each one could stop working. The ENT said that fact, plus the systemic reaction, is a very compelling reason to get the tubes and he wants us to do it as soon as possible.

We of course are not happy to have gotten to this point. It would be better to have Henry's ears drain on their own. But they don't. So this is our next best option, and we are ready to get it done!