The ear infection that won't go away

Last week, I blogged about darling daughter's second ear infection, her second infection in less than a month. After a follow up check up yesterday with a lovely nurse practitioner at my doctor's office, I learned that it will take a month for the fluid in her ears (which became infected and caused said ear infection) to be reabsorbed by her body. Until that happens, there is a chance that the fluid will become reinfected and cause another infection. A quick check of darling daughter's ears showed that one of them was still red. Since were almost finished with the amoxicillin prescription she gave us last week, she decided to extend it for another five days in hopes the medicine would clear up the redness in one of the ears.

Hours later that same day, darling daughter broke out in a rash from head to toe. Was it measles? Chicken pox? Or some kind of childhood disease? Or did she encounter something at the playground? Only another trip to the doctor's office (our fifth visit in a month) would give us a concrete answer as to what was causing the rash.

The culprit: amoxicillin. Apparently around day nine or 10, kids who have an allergy to the stuff can break out in a rash. Although she is showing a mild reaction to amoxicillin, she can't have any more. And other than giving her Benadryl and Motrin, we weren't given an alternative for the amoxicillin. I have my fingers crossed that the ear infection will go away. But with our recent track record, I doubt it.

Darling daughter still has her rash and I'm hesitant to take her out of the house. I know it is from the medicine, but I don't want to get strange or dirty looks from parents who will likely automatically assume she is sick with something. As well as being stuck in ear infection hell, we are also in self-imposed quarantine from dirty looks. As my friend T would say, good times, good times.