when stuff doesn't work

Monday was devastating for me. After the bout of teething ended last weekend, Elijah slept alot & returned to his smiling, enthusiastic self. Except he still refused to nurse. Friday afternoon he got unusally fussy & wouldn't nap; I suspected it might be his ears but didn't push when the pediatrician's line was consistently busy. He seemed pretty chill but had a runny nose, so I commenced our usual techniques: saline swabs, colloidal silver & olive oil drops infused with both onion & garlic (for pain & to fight infection). However, he woke often each night & stayed awake at 3am no matter what approach I used. To my relief, Nic said to take him in Monday & do whatever worked, even antibiotics if necessary. [He's never said anything like that before; all the Clinch siblings survived antibiotic-free & immunization-free their entire childhoods without a serious or even moderate bout of anything.]

At our appt I was grateful to hear her reinforce that while their office employs a full-time naturopath & encourages all the techniques I had used, the goal is integrative medicine. In other words, I could choose both natural & modern techniques to be sure I'm doing what lets Elijah heal & keep him healthy. To my dismay, she found a very bad infection: the right ear was bulging with fluid & the left eardrum had ruptured (less painful but starting to ooze). I'm now certain that's what was happening Saturday night. She gave us 3 scripts, two for antibiotics (oral & drops) & one for pain relief (drops). I kept it together until the pharmacy, where the price of the antibiotic drops reminded me how serious the infection was.

I cried all day, despite Elijah's cheerful yet nap-less disposition. He slept all night, 7pm to 6am, 3 nights in a row. Now we are hunting for a chiropractor for both of us, to keep me healthy this pregnancy & to prevent future ear infections for him.