The feedback from the skin specialist

The 6 long days of medication were over and it was now time to see the skin specialist as the surgeon suggested.He is a well known doctor and we reached the nursing home. The wait was quite agonising as Prisha was crying reliving her pain of the cut she had got last week. I kept trying to pep her up and she kept her tiny hand in my hand trying to negotiate the time the doctor would take.
Our turn came and I too had started to feel the fear that Prisha passed to me. Sitting there made me feel fearful of the pain one goes through of various hurts on the body. The doctor was pleasant and put us at ease.He looked at the boils and told us that it was a bacterial infection caused due to clogging of the sweat pores. I was relieved when he told me that he needed to give her antibiotics for 4 more days. I was a bit hassled up also as her big boil looked a bit inflamed in the morning today. My fear was that he shouldn't want to open it again. He has given an ointment that is not oily , and to increase her resistance and build up immunity, was prescribed her vit C and multi vitamin for a month. She needs to be bathed twice a day with a medicated soap to make sure there is no sweat remains. I need to make sure that all this is followed all summer as the temperature is already soaring and she does sweat a lot. So summers are going to be a bit of a test. I am still refraining from putting aid in the left ear . I think I am still not ready to take that risk as we have been through very tough times because of this. She is also doing well with just with one hearing aid. She responds when I call from the other room and takes all the corrections from far also.

Our chat with the ENT specialist

Today we got prisha's dressing changed. The boil looks better and has reduced quite a bit. The wound has healed but needed to be covered for another day. I hope the bulge would go away soon.She still gets scared the moment we enter the nursing home.She has developed a bit of a phobia as far as the incision is concerned. She keeps asking me if he is going to cut her up again.
The ENt specialist turned up to have a look at her ear.He spoke to Prisha and was a bit taken aback. He looked into her ear and said that there was a small boil in her ear but would be ok with the antibiotic medicine. I really hope to see it clear up.He then asked me about her loss. When I told him she was having a profound loss, he asked me if I had done the aided audiogram as this kind was not possible with profound loss.[ he really thought I had no knowledge in this regard and probably did not know that her loss must be mild ] When I told him a few facts , he knew I knew my subject quite well. When I told him my speech therapist name, he looked a bit taken aback again.[All of them know about her but none will recommend her as she is against their mal practices] He told me Prisha's speech shows she was ready for a cochlear implant. i knew that the conversation we were having was leading there. I told him that as I was able to develop speech with HA why opt for a CI. I am happy with it. I have seen the kids who come in our classes. CI have worked but here from what I see in Pune, there have been such cases which give me goose pimples.There is CI , but after that there is hardly any good speech therapy.Resulting in lack of speech.I feel that they should know what they are talking about. Everybody focuses on expensive HA and CI, but with so much poverty in India, and not much help from the government, how can an ordinary man afford them? Why don't they focus on speech therapy. Nobody shows any interest in it. is it because it is not as profitable? I feel I am more educated about the subject than any of these degree and diploma holders in this field.I was able to talk about it to the doctor and he was so uncomfortable and quickly wrapped me up from the room.Let us work towards the benefit of the masses. India is big and I know how difficult it is for an ordinary man to understand this subject and also to put together enough money to buy aids.Can't we promote AVT and help people to develop speech with whatever aids they can afford? I am glad today I educated the doctor and showed him a larger picture.Let us not be selfish and work a little more for the society. Just because CI has more scope to make money, one educates himself quickly on that subject, and when we talk about speech therapy , they look elsewhere. I am glad that I am able to show these people that with good HA too we can develop speech and give answers to their questions but when will the answers come for the questions of the common man?When will AVT take over and every deaf child talk? I hope soon.

The big boil

We went to our pediatrician who had a look at the boil that was at the base of the neck .It looked bad. From the size of a shallot before it reduced to 1/3 rd its size after the anti biotics.He advised me to get her admitted into the hospital so that the surgeon could scoop out the rest. The whole conversation was not very child or parent friendly.With such a dispassionate view of the whole thing made me wonder if it was to make some money and not really considerate towards us. I was breaking down. How could I See my princess go through this 24 hr or so ordeal.We thought of a second opinion. A surgeon , who we have visited earlier,lived close by and we decided to show it to him.He told us it was not such a big deal.He too Prisha inside who was howling and said he would take out the abscess without the anesthesia. I heard her yelling for me from the OT.I was howling away, closing my ears to shut out her shrieks.10 minutes later , she was out sweating and full of tears.I hugged her tight. While she sat out with her granny, the surgeon told me there was no abcess left as it had drained out in sleep a few days back. Little cavity needed to be closed but that too did not need stitching. A regular dressing for a week with antibiotics, a topical ointment to be applied in her nose and other small boils would take care of the problem.The bacteria in the nose had reached into the ears and started to come out as boils in the ear and later the infection got bigger and the bacteria had attracted her more vulnerable areas that is her head and neck and have erupted into boils. I now have to be careful about her ears being dry and no cold , so that this does not occur again.There should not be any long term cold .a tough lesson learnt.But she is a tough girl.

They haven't gone

The boils became worse.One at the nape of the neck is now the size of a toffee.I had to rush to a pediatrician , who has advised me to start anti biotic and if does not go with that, he will consider puncturing it to remove the abscess.I am dreading it.Honestly she is very brave , but this is going to be painful.I can't see her going through this.The boil in the ear too has dried up and other small boils on her head too have gone. Monday will decide the future of the boil.
My little girl is growing up.She now wants clothes that show off her naval! Wants to do make up and really pose in front of the camera.I have to guide her a bit and all done through speech and she gives me the perfect picture.
as for my youtube, Ma'am suddenly said she does not want to be clicked anymore. I was really hoping to be able to spread the knowledge about this field .Hope to coax her. Hope it does not take 1 and half years like before.
I have been doing a bit of expanding her vocab specially on action words. I am trying to sit and do a few everyday and then I use them in full sentences.I wrote them on a sheet of paper , so that they are in my view and I can use them in different context.That way she can find more ways of expressing her thoughts.She has been playing teacher.The confidence is so high.I love the full voice that she uses, her intonation is a copy of her teacher.Clarity is coming too.Luckily people around say that they have no problem understanding her.She is graduating to the next class and hopefully she would be at par with other kids.

Swimmer's ear

Last 1 1/2 months have gone since prisha had her ear infection.She had little boils in her left ear canal and has been braving the pain since then.I have given her 3 rounds of antibiotics and applied ointment and it kept coming back.A few days it really got worse as a huge boil appeared outside the canal. It was full of abscess.My heart just reached out to her as when I peeped into her ear she screamed in pain. There was another big boil inside.I panicked and went to my homeopath. He gave me medicines for 3 days. The abscess formation is too much.He asked me to avoid applying anything in the canal.I felt that the antibiotics only healed from outside. The root cause was inside and homeopathy heels from within.I decided to be patient once more and have been regularly going to the clinic. I cleaned it with ear buds carefully 3 times a day and applied an anti fungal, antibacterial cream- cloben G. Yesterday I was very hassled as the ear buds were soaked in thick yellow mucus each time.The doctor changed the medicines for her and today she is better.The ear bud pulled out a bit of fluid and a little bit of dry abscess to my relief.The pain behind the ear was absent and the little covering on the ear canal was a bit less painful.She has developed a lot of prickly heat on her body and has 2 big boils on her neck, 1 on the forehead and a lot of prickly heat on her body and arms. her left toes are red and swollen and has a bit of itch on the palms too.Looking forward to seeing the doctor again tomorrow.
I did a lot of research on the net[Thank God we live in these times...]. It is the swimmer's ear that is bothering us. She had a cold early this ear and maybe the ear was wet, plus the middle ear too must have got a bit of fluid due to the cold, and to top it the mould that are worn nearly for 13 hours without a break must have been a haven for the bacteria to develop.Prisha has been extremely brave and patient to deal with all the pain.I am hoping that the infection goes away soooon.
I am going to be careful in future. I need to wash the mould with soapy solution and anti bacterial wash once a week, keep the aid in the de- humidifier along with the aid often.The mould should be wiped with spirit everyday , apply a bit of anti bacterial cream to avoid any infection and redness. Air the ear 2-3 times a day by just removing the aid for 30 seconds.Wipe dry the ear after a bath and shower, after a shampoo specially- ideally use a blow drier from the distance of 18 inches at cool into the ear so that the canal is totally dry.I hope that she gets over this fast now.

Youtube upload of Mrs. Alaka Hudlikar's speech therapy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZBuTnxp_uM

I just uploaded the 1st speech therapy lessons on youtube. The topic being "questions". I found it very useful.