Nervously wringing my hands..

And not half an hour later, I felt like banging my head on the wall.

All these happened last night, just around 11-12 o'clock. Nazrin was having a good night (read: sleep undisturbed for a long period of time) when he woke up crying and holding his left ear. As usual, as he was sleeping in the swing, I tried rocking him back to sleep. That attempt failed.

So, I picked him up and tried looking into his ear (there's always the concern over insects getting into ears..) with Ahmad's help. We couldn't see anything. Then, Nazrin kind of drifted back to sleep in my arms, so I put him back in the swing. Not 15 minutes later, he woke up again, crying louder this time about how his ear hurts. Thinking that it might be an ant inside his eardrum, I did what my parents usually do when we were young and have insects in our ear (which happened quite often..eicchh..), I dropped some water into his left ear. Which led to him crying even more and causing me to feel like a bad mother for putting him through that. 

I was getting frantic when he kept crying and getting back to sleep at intervals for nearly 40 minutes. I finally gave in and asked Ahmad to drive us to the clinic to get Nazrin's ear checked. Luckily, two of Ahmad's friends were hanging out here, so we left them to look after Shahrin, who blissfully slept through this whole episode. Since all the private clinics were closed, we headed out to our local clinic. They always have someone on standby for emergencies. 

When we got there, the ambulance driver was washing the ambulance (weird much but very helpful) and he told us to call the number of last night's medical officer on duty. Ahmad gave him a call. Poor man* was already asleep but he came pretty quickly since his living quarters was just behind the clinic. Nazrin was quite calm by that time and he didn't cry when the medical assistant checked his ear with that pointy thing with lights at the end (what's it called by the way?).

What did he find? Earwax.

That's right. Nazrin's left ear was full of earwax. Apparently, the earwax had hardened and that had caused him to feel pain which could be due to the pressure buildup within his eardrum or just because hard earwax can cause irritation. HAH! Who knew?

So, he gave us some panadol for the pain and an eardrop to soften up the earwax. And there I was ready to do battle with whatever insect he might have found inside Nazrin's ear. DUH..

After thanking both gentlemen, we headed back home and I kept having this weird feeling that we've been through this before. By the time we arrived, I finally figured out why I felt like this scenario was familiar. Because it was. I think it was last year when we were crashing in at my sister's house (without Ahmad) for a family gathering. The same thing happened then too. Nazrin just got better from a fever and one night he kept crying and holding his left ear. My father took us to the nearest private clinic but the Dr said that there was nothing wrong with Nazrin. I had to beg him to do a more thorough check since I couldn't stand seeing Nazrin cry. He too came to the conclusion that Nazrin's left ear was so full of wax that it was causing him pain. I had foolishly thought that some insect had gotten inside his ear then too. Stupid!

I think I'd be better prepared for next time (if it ever happens again) and will not jump to the same stupid conclusion again. This time around, I think I see the pattern now. It seems that Nazrin can get this same problem again following a fever, which was exactly what happened then and last night. I can't always clean his ears since he'd want to do it himself, which always leads to me telling him no and him crying for not getting his way. Next time, I'll keep an ear-drop ready for such incidence. 

Go read this for info: earwax in children.

At least I'm not completely to blame for his earwax build-up. Heh.

* Thank you so much to En. Sahrun from Klinik Kesihatan Bagan Serai. Sorry for disturbing your sleep. Heh.