How to perforate an eardrum in two easy steps...

Wednesday morning my toddler woke up a little crankier than usual. He was randomly throwing himself down on the floor, flailing and crying. I decided (from my vantage point of lying on the couch) to pick him up and give him snuggles. Boy do I regret that decision. I made some quick illustrations of what happened next...

3 seconds later...

In a moment of complete toddler fury, Julian slammed his head back into my head. Some primal instinct told me to turn my head at the last second and so my ear took the direct brunt (at least it wasn't my nose.) I immediately had some severe pain, ringing and couldn't hear much of anything out of that ear. I just KNEW he had perforated my ear drum.   Fast forward to the doctor's office on Thursday and it was confirmed - a rather sizeable hole in my tympanic membrane that will take up to 8 weeks to heal, and a somewhat amused nurse practitioner who marveled at just how much force it takes to rupture an ear drum. I told her my son had always been hard headed... haha. No really. He is.

In the meantime...I still can't hear a whole lot of out of that ear and I do get some stabbing pains on occasion. The loss of hearing is a very diorientating feeling, but I can already sense myself getting used to it a somewhat. I guess that's a good thing. I have to have it checked again in 3 weeks and if it's not healing properly, I'm off to the ENT for an ear drum patch, and in the meantime - no bubble baths.  Good times, people. Good times.

Sometimes I think motherhood should have come equipped with a crash helmet.

Tomorrow we head to our third doctor appointment of the week...to see a dermatologist about a strange, persistant rash Julian has had since about November. Once we get past all the medical madness, I will hopefully be able to update my blog a bit more frequently. It's been a rough last few weeks.