OUCH!

We just found out today that our cute baby has two ear infections. Thankfully, he is now on antibiotics, but I have earned a few gray hairs before reaching this happy ending. I took him into our local instacare clinic yesterday. The first thing the nurse did is take his vitals which includes measuring his blood oxygen saturation levels. They do this with a little clip-on finger monitor. Our little guy thought it was cool at first, but would not hold his little finger still and they couldn't get any reading. So they clipped it to his ear lobe...no reading, next his other ear lobe...still no reading. They finally tried one of his toes and got a reading of 87-88%, which is not good. So bad, in fact that they immediately sent me to the Emergency Room. I hurried to the hospital a little unnerved because I was expecting an ear infection (he had been complaining that his ear hurt) not pneumonia! The trauma nurse whisked us right in and hooked him up to her monitor, a much nicer monitor, by the way. She quickly calmed our fears with two very normal readings and said that he was just fine. Of course, by this time the clinic was closed and I didn't want to pay hundreds of dollars for an E.R. doctor to prescribe antibiotics for an ear infection. She sent us home with advice to treat his fever overnight and take him in again in the morning. Again today, the doctor had to try for 15 minutes to get a normal reading...but finally did and sent us home victorious with a prescription! Poor guy had infections in both ears, but seems to be feeling better already...he is very funny and a little loopy when he is feverish, but we will be happy to have him back to his normal self!