How I ruptured my eardrum–by me, Miss Jennah!

A ruptured eardrum sounds a lot worse than it really is … although in my case, it probably is a lot worse than it really should be! It’s a wonder how sweet, innocent, little ol’ me managed to rupture my eardrum. It couldn’t have been from too much Lady Gaga, could it? No. Nonetheless, I will share with you my technique for rupturing an eardrum …

1. Have your parents decide that you need reconstructive hip surgery, which will put you in a spica cast for 6 weeks. This will keep you immobilized from the chest down (don’t worry, you head and arms are free!). Despite the nasty smell of the spica cast after the first week, you will begin to become accustomed to the cast. In fact, you will feel very secure in the cast and find that you no long need to use your leg muscles. It’s a great way to lose weight and muscle mass!

2. This is the most important step. About 1 week before getting the cast off, catch a cold from your brother or sister. If you don’t have a sibling, an airplane ride or trip to the Dr. may suffice.

2. After 6 weeks, have the spica cast sawed off. My mom couldn’t wait for this to happen since she was really tired of carrying me around in the cast and treating it daily with a vinegar wash. She tried to make the cast smell better, but it really didn’t work … shhh! don’t tell her!

3. Immediately after having the cast removed, SCREAM! and cry and scream some more! Because it’s going to hurt like crazy, folks! They will put you into a soft brace to help maintain your legs and hips in the same position as the cast, but it’s not the same! The soft brace is “soft” … it moves and so will your hips. The skin on your legs will have goosebumps big enough to slow down a speeding car in Dubai. Stop screaming only when no one touches you. You won’t want any hugs, you won’t want to be held, you won’t want to be fed. Most importantly, don’t move a muscle because it will hurt and it’s just really scary!

4. The first week out of the cast will take some work because you have to cry and scream a lot and not sleep very much. Also, since you won’t want to move or be moved at all, for fear of pain, you won’t be able to belch/burp/wind, so you’ll spit up a lot. Your spit-up and vomiting will be even more productive and messy if you managed to catch that cold earlier as mentioned in step 2. Since you can’t change positions very quickly to vomit into a bucket or off to the side, a lot of it will just shoot right back up into your nose and into the back of your ear. Prime recipe for an ear infection, wouldn’t you say?

My mom noticed my ear infection about 10 days after I got the cast removed. Since I can’t talk or tug on my ear like other children, my mom somehow figured it out when I flinched at the touch of my ear. Then she tugged on it again, just to make sure … OUCH! Gosh woman! Leave my ear alone and get me some antibiotics already! So we got to visit the Bellevue Seattle Children’s Urgent Care clinic for the first time ever! I was looking forward to the ride in the car …

Oh sorry … I’ve diverted from my step-by-step instructions!

5.  Continue to move around very little. With little movement, you won’t be able to help your ear relieve the pressure. You don’t want that ear infection to clear up too quickly! My friends with tubes in your ears, I’m afraid it will be very hard for you to accomplish this task since your tubes will help your ears drain … drats!

6. Once enough pressure has built up in your ear, let your eardrum rupture! They say that sometimes a rupture will heal on it’s own immediately, but if you have a case bad enough, you can get it to rupture again … wohoo!

I managed to do this since I’m sooooo good at not moving around. When my ear started draining, blood started seeping out along with the drainage. It was kind of messy! My mom thought it was just ear infection drainage, but I continued to cry and scream, and, most importantly, bleed from my ear a bit more. So we got to go to the Urgent Care clinic again! Only 5 days from our previous visit … fun!!!

I have some more antibiotics in the form of ear drops now. This should help heal the eardrum and keep it healed. The Dr. thinks I’ve ruptured it at least twice. I’m feeling better now and my mom can lightly touch my ear to get the drops in. I’m also starting to move my legs a bit. Best of all, however, is that I’m out of my soft brace! It still hurts to be moved around, but I can tolerate being out of the brace now.

I’m going to go back to my own pediatrician this week, inshallah, to make sure the eardrum has healed. Hopefully it has because I don’t want a patch on my ear, or worse, and surgical procedure!!! My mom would not be pleased. She’s so easily stressed out anyway …

Thanks for reading my long blog post!

Love to all,

Miss Jennah

2 more weeks!

I see my last post was while Jennah was in recovery from the surgery! So much for keeping up via the blog, eh? I know that many of you have put up with my bitching and whining over FB where I also have some crazy pictures of her in the car as well as the 5 “easy” steps to changing a diaper. As I’m sure you can understand, these past 4 weeks have been a bit hellish. We spent only 3 nights at Seattle Children’s and were released after forcing Jennah to have a bowel movement before the end of the day’s last rounds. I was ready to get out of there‼

The first week was absolutely terrible. She was on oxycodone (causes Jennah more constipation and nausea), acetaminophen, lorazepam (a muscle relaxer) and two types of stool softeners along with her usual seizure medications. I was drugging her with something every two hours around the clock. One of the worse things about her first week was the muscle spasms. They had cut through and lengthened 2 pairs of her muscles, the abductors and adductors, so they spasm as they begin to heal back together. The spasms looked exactly like her seizures. It was heart-wrenching not knowing if the pain had provoked her seizures or if they muscle spasms, or both. They were painful, no doubt, and she let us know.

By the end of the second week, after dozing off during both of my classes (luckily my professors both understood and pitied me), I was ready to throw in the towel and quit my studies. In the four years that I have spent earning this degree, through Jennah’s infancy and seizures, through the move to Dubai and back, I have never wanted to quit so badly. Through the support of my husband and classmates, I’ve come back around and am still expected to graduate in 2 weeks! Don’t get me started on how much these next two weeks of projects, papers and finals is going to suck …

So, it’s been 4 crazy weeks. I have not had more than 90 minutes of consecutive sleep in 4 weeks … well, aside from one night where Jennah had a bit of a cold and slept for 4 hours straight! I just hope she didn’t get any bed sores from that stretch of immobility! Anyway, I am tired. Exhausted, really. I don’t know if there is really a word to describe my physical being of exhaustion and mental stress. My complexion is shot, my hair is greasy, I have more eye wrinkles than my mom, and my pants are falling off.

BTW, did I mention that Jennah’s cast is to be removed on the day of my last final exam? No telling how she’s going to react to being free, but put into a brace in a different position. I expect she’ll be sore and have more muscle spasms. Nothing ever comes easy. Luckily, I just learned that hubby will be in town that week … phew!

On the bright side, Jennah is laughing and smiling again, despite her nasty-smelling cast. She really is such a trooper and just so incredibly sweet.