Update on Ethan's Ears

"Have you ever seen Shrek?" says Mrs. Dillon, the RN who helped with Ethan's delivery, and is peering into Ethan's ears. I called her this morning and asked if I could bring Ethan over to her house so she could peek in and check for ear infection with her otoscope. She kindly obliged, and it turns out his ears are packed with copious quantities of wax. Enough that the eardrum is completely obscured! Lyn (Tim's mommy) tells me this is common to all her boy children. I guess it's hereditary, or something. Lyn writes:

All my boys have chronically huge amounts of cerumen in their ears. We call them monsters, and we're always battling the problem. Tim once came into my room announcing he couldn't hear, and after a panic stricken trip to the urgent care, came home proudly toting a piece of wax the size of a birthday candle that came out of one of his ears. Joey [Tim's little brother] just had to have his ears cleaned out today because he couldn't sleep last night due to the pressure from the impacted wax. The PA who worked on him announced, "Wow this stuff is like cement," which really wasn't surprising to me... Judah [Tim's other little brother] has the problem too, though so far, we've been spared any medical intervention.

So we're starting there. Wax removal is something I will trust to our local family doctors here in Forks- I just have to head over to the walk-in clinic this afternoon and see if they have time to fit him in. I'll let you all know what happens. This is certainly not the cause of all of Ethan's problems, but may be a significant piece of the puzzle. I am interested to see what will happen when the wax is gone. Will everything seem too loud and overwhelming for him; will he cry? Will he have scars on his eardrums from chronic undiagnosed otitis media? Sheesh.