I Just Want to Kiss It and Make It Go Away

Last night, when I went in to check on Elyse before Mike and I went to bed, I couldn’t help but to linger there just a little longer than normal. She always looks so sweet and peaceful in those late hours, all curled up with her “mankie,” but last night, watching her sleep in the dark of her room made me tear up and I felt like my heart could explode with the love that I have for that baby girl.


You see, yesterday Elyse had to see a pediatric ENT (ear, nose, and throat) specialist. When she was six months old, I took her to our regular pediatrician for what I expected was an ear infection. When he examined her, he found that she did have an infection, but he noticed something else too. It seemed that she had a small red spot inside her left ear on her eardrum. He didn’t think that it was anything to be concerned about, and said that we would just keep an eye on it to be sure that it didn’t change drastically. But about six months later, when nothing had changed, but it still hadn’t gone away, he decided that she should see an ENT just to be on the safe side.

That doctor, though he hadn’t seen anything like this before either, also felt that it was nothing more than probably a birthmark that would go away with time, but he too wanted to monitor it. When we went last week for another follow-up, he decided that maybe it was time to check with a pediatric ENT who might have seen this type of thing before, and so yesterday we went to see the specialist.

I was absolutely sick with scenarios of how this appointment would go. I was terrified that he would take one look in her ear and give us the “this isn’t good” look. I don’t know what I would do if there was something drastically wrong with her, and I can’t fathom what it would be like to be a parent who does get that look from the doctor. But after he examined her, he assured us that this, like everyone else has said, is probably nothing more than a birthmark.  He does, however, want her to have a CAT scan early next week just to be sure that there isn’t anything behind the eardrum that would be causing the red spot, like a cyst or something.

While we still aren’t 100% sure that this really is nothing, every fiber in my being tells me that she will be ok. She has never had any hearing problems and the initial ear infection that revealed the spot has been her only infection. If this were something more major, I just feel that she would be showing more symptoms.

So please keep our baby girl in your thoughts and prayers, because she has been the answer to mine.