Are you kidding me?!?!

I get this picture at work today from Little Brother. He says Hannah isn't feeling well - and I trust his instincts. They've all been on antibiotics for 10 days now (today was their last day). But she seemed a bit off last night too. So I called the doctor to get her in today...made an appt for 4:30. Pete and I decided to bring all 3 of them since they needed a recheck of their ears anyway. We both leave work and meet at home. He had the girls ready to go so all I had to do was jump out and help put them in the car...brrrrrrr - it's cold out there! Hannah looked miserable to me. Off we go.

We get to the doctor, she takes a look in Hannah's ears and guess what? She has a double ear infection! Are you kidding me? They JUST finished their meds TODAY for their last ear infections! Immediately I say 'Please check the other two' (they didn't have appts but she was totally fine with it). Yup - Emily has an ear infection too. Oh...look at that...so does Hailey! Ok at this point I'm about to lose my mind. I want answers and the doctor doesn't want to be in the same room with me. What is causing this? Why aren't the meds working? How can we avoid this? What if this 3rd round of medication doesn't work? One of the reasons we chose this doctor is because she can handle ME. lol...not an easy task

The girls were born 2 months premature - so the common cold doesn't last days in our house...it lasts weeks. Literally weeks. Now multiply that by 3 and add the fact that kids get more than one common cold during the winter months and you have...the Lucco residence. So all these posts that are ranting about washing your hands? And all my obsessive cleaning? And all of my signs in my house about hand-washing? And my Mama Bear approach to strangers that try to touch my babies? Yeah...it's not all for nothing. I don't do it for my health...I do it for my babies health. But I'm smart enough to know that they'll get colds no matter how hard we try to avoid them. That's just a fact of life.

The colds are what's causing the ear infections. They get so stuffy and congested that their ear canals are clogging and becoming infected. They've been 'stuffy' for about 3 months now. It's been a constant battle. Once one of them gets better...another one gets a cold and then they share. Lovely...the one thing I don't want them to share and they do! LOL

The doctor asks us 3 questions...are they drinking bottles? No. Binkies? No. Smokers in the house? No. Ok - then there's not much we can do on our own. We simply can't avoid the colds - that's just how it is. I can't put them in a bubble...they've been let out and once that happens you can't get them back in! If we can get through this winter we should be ok. They'll be bigger and stronger by next winter - and their immune systems will be stronger as well.

Tubes. That's really not an option at this point. Let's not forget that 2 of our peanuts are not yet 20lbs. They would need surgery to have tubes put in. We're already facing surgery for 2 of them in the next couple of years...three more surgeries isn't something we can tackle right now. The doctor doesn't think it's beneficial at this point because we know what the problem is. Ugh...if we can just get through this winter....

We got back from the doctor and I fed the kids dinner while Pete went and filled their meds. He got home - I gave them their meds and Hannah proceeded to throw up all over the place. Bath night!!!!!! Poor kid kept saying 'uh oh' until we got her in the tub. We gave them baths, brushed teeth, read books and in their cribs they went. I don't even think we were out of the room before they we sleeping. It's gonna be a long night....put the coffee on!!!!!!