TRUST YOUR MATERNAL INSTINCT...DISTURB YOUR DOC

Today after reading a Mom's post on Ci Circle, I thought it would be important to share this situation with anyone reading this blog who is not a member of the yahoo group. I contacted the mom, who is in the middle of the crisis, yet appears calm and she said, "Yes, by all means go ahead and share the story! I want to help inform as many parents as possible." What a woman! Even in the midst of a dramatic event, her first thought is to help the next. I'm still waiting on a photo of her daughter, but as you'll see, she has her hands full right now...
THIS WAS HER INITIAL POST:
Hi there everyone!
I was fixing my daughter's hair this morning and noticed that she
has a bump that is the size of a small grape at one of her incision
sites. It is like a large blister. It is squishy like a blister
too. The bump is not red, but the skin all around it is.
I called the surgeon's office and explained it to them. They told me
to just watch it and if it changes to let them know. The thing that
is strange to me is that she had surgery on this ear back in May.
That seems like a long time to go by and just now having something
happen to it. She does not regularly wear her BTE (behind the ear processor)
on this ear. She typically has the body worn processor. The only time she does have
the BTE on is when she is getting ready for bed.

Has anyone else ever had this experience? Any suggestions?
I have to brag a bit while I am at it!!! Today is my little girl's second
birthday. If you ask her how old she is she without skipping a beat
will say two and hold up two fingers. She counts to ten by herself.
Last night she was counting the number of balloons in a picture
(with her CI's off) and counted to ten on her own with no prompting.
I guess I still think this is pretty amazing for a deaf kiddo! :)

AT THIS POINT THE MOTHERS OF THE PEDIATRIC CI CIRCLE BEGAN RESPONDING WITH ADVICE, A COMMON THEME WAS TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS AND SEEK IMMEDIATE MEDICAL ASSISTANCE.

THIS WAS THE MOM'S MOST RECENT POST:

Hi there,
I wrote last week and mentioned that I noticed a bump at my
daughter's inscision site. This particular ci surgery was back in
May of this year. My daughter, showed no signs of fever,
discomfort, etc.

I called my surgeon's office and talked to the nurse and she had no
idea what to say. I was not impressed at all with the amount of help
given. She made me an appt. for the 14!!!
The next day (last Friday) I decided to have my local doc take a
look. He looked at it for about 5 seconds and asked for the
surgeon's name. He went and called immediately. He was back in less
than 5 min. and said that I shouldn't take time to go home I just
needed to head up to see my surgeon. I was frantic! How bad could it
be for me to rush to see my surgeon??? I called my husband and he
met me and we took off for the hour long ride. I don't think I
calmed down the whole way there.

My surgeon took one look and said that she had an absess and she
would need surgery that day. We immediately checked into the
hospital and they did surgery to drain the bump. The main concern
was the bacteria. They wanted to know what type it was and how far
it had spread.

Making my long story a little shorter, we just got home...two days
later. It turned out that the bacteria was nothing too harmful and
it didn't get to the implant. She has a tube where the bump was to
drain for the next couple of days. She also had a semi-permanent iv
put in and we have to put in antibiotics in once a day through this
iv tube. A nurse is coming in the morning to train me. The
infectious disease control lady told us that we would do an overkill
with the antibiotics just to be on the safe side.

The doctors thought that if we wouldn't have brought her in on
Friday she would have had a horrible temp and be extremely sick by
this time.

Moral of the story: BE VIGILANT ABOUT EVERYTHING AND TRUST YOUR GUT INSTINCTS!
The doctor said that this was pretty rare. He did have one other
similar case about a month ago and before that it had been nine
years.

The hospital is not a fun place to spend the weekend! It isn't cheap
either!!!

We as parents know our children BETTER than the doctors, and yet oftentimes we are afraid to "bother" them with something that might not be considered valid in their eyes. I've been very lucky here in Italy to have found doctors and professionals who make me feel that it is okay to call if I feel nervous or concerned about any aspect of Jordan's implant. We trust these doctors with our kids, no easy task, yet we are afraid to disturb them...I hope this post will make another mother think twice before being worried about disturbing a physician.