Noah's ear has been infected for six weeks. When the infection spread to behind his ear and the skin swelled, we took him to the Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. Dr. Lin, the new ear specialist, drained the ear and prescribed a strong intravenous antibiotic. Monday morning I noticed his skin behind the ear was swollen. I called Dr. Lin and he told us to come in Tuesday morning so he could perform the surgery and remove the infectious tissue. The surgery took 5 1/2 hours, and the middle bone in the middle ear bone structure had to be replaced due to decay.
The next morning the doctors from the disease control research team asked me a bunch of questions about his long ear infection history. It dawned on me then that Noah could have caught this bacterial infection from someone at school since families move in and out of the country with job changes. They told us there's a new bacterial infection that reeks havoc on middle ears and gave him the new immunization for it in case that's not what he has. They took a TB test, two blood tests, and lots of cultures of puss during the operation. I felt so bad for my Noah, but happy to be rid of it. For now, anyway. They released us Friday evening (the 15th), with a prescription for a 3,400 dollar antibiotic! So far our insurance has covered it; we're hoping they don't refuse the charge and try to charge us for part of it later on.
