And another Dr. visit...

Yes, that's right - another doctor visit for our family, and this time it was for Mr. Brecken again. Sunday evening and Monday morning, he was extremely fussy and irritable (having complete meltdowns over everything!), which is just not like him at all. He also was starting to pull on his right-ear again. I thought uh-oh, does he have another ear infection already even though he just ended the antibiotics on Thursday morning? He didn't have a fever, but since he didn't run a temp last time either, we can't really use that to help us figure out if he has an actual infection or not. Our pediatrician wasn't able to see him yesterday when I was off for President's Day, so D.J. snuck away from work again today and took him to the dr. Well it turns out that the infection is completely cleared up, but he has "a ton of fluid in that ear." She also saw a little fluid in that ear back at the end of December when we were in for his 15-month check-up. The other concern is that we're leaving for Fort Myers on Saturday, and we really don't want any sort of ear infection going on when we get on the plane...so since that fluid can very easily turn into an infection in no time, she prescribed a type of antibiotic (Sulfa) that is used to help prevent ear infections. Otherwise, she said we'll probably end up having to go to urgent care down in Florida. However, even with this medicine, she warned us that it might be quite a rough plane ride because they've never been able to find a way to get rid of the actual fluid. Oh joy! I'm not sure if I'm most worried about Brecken having pain, us parents dealing with a screaming child, or the poor people on the plane with us! I guess we'll just give him ibuprofen before we get on the plane and hope for the best :) The dr. said we can bring him in again when we get back from Florida if he is showing any symptoms at all (or if we just want to get it checked out) because if that much fluid stays in his ear, it can cause hearing issues which is definitely not good at this age when they are developing their language skills so much. After hearing about the infection being gone and just having the fluid in the ear, I think his fussiness was more related to his teething (eye teeth) than ear pain, but it was probably good because it got us to take him into the dr. and otherwise we may have had an even more interesting plane ride.