At least there’s some good news this time!

     First, the good news: Today was Simon’s first post-surgery “back to being Simon” day! For nearly 2 weeks, I’ve had to pat his back for 1-3 hours every time he needed to sleep because he couldn’t stop screaming and grabbing at his head enough to calm down and sleep. Today, however, I simply laid him down and he was asleep within minutes for all of his naps and wasn’t fussy throughout the day at all, just like he always used to be. Words cannot describe how HAPPY this makes me!!!
     I’d say that today he was 98% percent his old self. Happy, hard to upset, not prone to crying, eating well, and not resisting his naps at all. He doesn’t get 100% because he is still futzing with his right ear, but even that doesn’t seem to be as bad. 
     I was really dismayed last night because the first half of yesterday felt like it was a really good day for him, so I got my hopes up that we were on the up and up! But then the second half of yesterday was absolutely terrible; enough to make me want to put both my kids in full-time day care or a boarding school or any situation in which I could appreciate them from afar. I felt just SO beat up after it, like perhaps my hopes were all in vain and I really had lost my happy baby forever. But nope! He really came through today. We’ll still have setbacks I’m sure, but he really seems to be getting better and transitioning to his new tubes. Wooty woot woot.
     I also went to a different pediatrician (good news: she was great!) and she explained that his hard recovery from the tubes is probably a testament to how bad off his ear situation was to begin with. It’s very plausible that his ears were so full of goop and fluid before that he was barely able to hear and lived in a quiet, muffled world. Additionally, he probably also had a different pressure system in his head than what is normal. He had grown accustomed to it since that is how it was since birth, but all of the sudden his pressure is changed and his hearing acuity sky-rocketed due to the new tubes. Such a drastic change could easily cause headaches, nausea, and overall distress because it was such a transition from how stifled his hearing was before. Add on top of that that his ears were probably very sore from the tubes being inserted in the first place so that’s another good explanation for his sadness. I had thought some of these thoughts before, but they were shot down by our ass-hat ENT, who insisted that Simon was just colicky because most all babies are significantly happier after tubes are put in. He also didn't think that they would be hurting him in any way, so his opinion was that Simon is just a fussy baby.
     Today's pediatrician also thought that his over-attention to his right ear could be caused by his want to comfort his new head. He was focusing on his right ear though because he’s probably right-handed and feels more able to use that hand for grabbing or protecting his ear, while he always uses his left hand just to suck to soothe himself. Sounds like good logic to me. I really hadn’t thought of that before.
     So from here on out, I hope that each day just gets better now that he’s had some time to adjust to his new head. This prospect thrills me!

There is, however, still bad news:

Here are Simon’s weight stats, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out what the bad news is:

August 10th:        9 pounds 5 oz  90th percentile
September 30th:  13 lbs 4 oz     90th percentile 
*second ear drum perforation, October 3rd*
October 19th:      13 lbs 8oz        75th percentile
*third ear drum perforation, October 22nd*
November 1st:     12 lbs, 1oz       15th percentile
November 11th:   12 lbs, 14 oz    25th percentile

Height percentile the entire time: 90th percentile

     Aside from all of the pain that Simon was in after his tubes were put in on November 1st, my biggest worry of the day was the fact that, according to their measurements at the hospital, he had grown 2 inches in the last month but somehow managed to lose about a pound and a half. It is never good news when babies lose weight, so a pound and a half while still growing taller is very bad news. Being 15th percentile for weight and 90th percentile for height is definitely not a desirable combination. I honestly thought that there was no way their scale was right. I know he looked a bit thinner, but surely not that much. At the pediatrician’s today, it was confirmed that he really does only weigh 12 pounds, but at least he weighed 13 oz more today than he did just 10 days ago.
     So the bad news is that being sick took a big toll on him, but the good news is that he has gained 13 oz in 10 days and is starting to be happy again. I really can’t even start thinking about how skinny he had become because it makes me cry, so instead I will just try to focus on the prospect that he’s gaining now.
     Though he does seem to be on the upswing, this new pediatrician wanted to do a blood workup on him just in case. It came out looking really good, except that he is rather low on iron. I explained to her that I myself go in and out of Anemia all of the time not really noticing the difference so perhaps it’s a genetic thing. She, being smarter that I am, pointed out that that means he’s probably not getting the iron he needs from my milk, thus making him go in and out of Anemia and making him sleepier or more lethargic than needs be- hence his intense sleeping schedule.
     The end of this story is that I finally found a doctor that offered some very plausible ANSWERS. Oh how I needed these!!! All on the same day that he seems to be his old self again, it feels better than Christmas— seriously!
     In celebration, I do believe I’ll include some pics from his bath, even though it makes me sad that he looks skinny in them. He is still my sweet baby and I will love him skinny or fat.