In August this past summer, we had the opportunity to head back to our home town for a few weeks so that Mark could meet with people at the university and get some work done there. Alex and I got to tag along for the fun of it and to see our friends that we hadn’t gotten to see during the polar vortex that kept us from driving down.
On the flight from Shanghai to Chicago, Alex started complaining about his ear hurting, and we thought, maybe he’s got a slight ear infection or more likely it’s just the pressure in the airplane. Halfway through the flight, it hurt him enough that he couldn’t keep his headphones on touching that ear. By the time we landed though, he had stopped complaining, so we thought we were past the worst of it….. oh boy were we wrong.
Let me just tell you that the US is not the place to get stuck with medical problem with no insurance. We’ve never really done the traveler’s insurance, but we do now. We tried finding free clinics in Urbana, they were all closed or wouldn’t open for days, we asked his old doctors office at Carle and they wanted $800 just to see him. Finally we decided we’d try the Minute Clinic at CVS. Before you think we’re over reacting, I’m going to show you a picture of Alex’s head, the ear on the left is normal, and the ear on the right is the painful one, and so swollen it is leaning out and down.
We had to drive to Bloomington, about 45 min away, to find a clinic that was open and had appointments available. And to his credit, my kid is a trooper, he felt like crap and just kept going because that’s what we had to do. When we got to the clinic, the doctor said that his ear canal was so swollen she couldn’t see anything, but also didn’t feel comfortable just giving us an antibiotic in case it was mastoiditis (which can be life threatening if not treated properly). What she did for us though, was call Christie Clinic in Bloomington and help us get a same day appointment to have him see an ENT there.
Again, the new ENT can’t see into his ear canal because the swelling is too bad, she removed some wax to try to see in and it was so painful for the kiddo- so we were sent home with some antibiotic drops and pills to take and an order to come back in three days. The swelling came down, and he was in so much less pain, when we went back in three days she was able to see to his ear drum and was able to find the source of our problems.
Before we left for China, Alex had ear tubes put in at the same time they took out his tonsils. While they were being put in, we were told they will fall out on their own in 6 months to a year. This was two full years later, and the tubes were still in. The one causing the problems had come out part way and turned, so it was blocking the ear drum from healing all the way, and causing it all to get blocked up with wax and trapping water behind that tube causing ear infections.
This poor kid had to have the tube pulled out with no anesthetic, and it was very painful. Since the second ear wasn’t an issue yet, we decided to wait until we were back home in China (well, actually our next trip to Thailand) to have the 2nd tube removed. The doctor we saw in Bloomington was great, and really took a lot of time and care with Alex. And luckily for him, we spent the rest of the trip with no more ear problems but no swimming either. All told it cost $650 to see the doctors and get him treated, and it would have been more had the new ENT not helped us out with $200 antibiotic ear drops.
With the ear crisis averted we could go back to our vacation, and seeing our friends. James was in Alex’s class when we lived in Illinois, and Pippy is his adorable younger sister. It was so good to see them again after 2 years away.
Our other friends, the Jones family, had great toys– like the fart gun from Despicable Me that I would never buy for him. He laughed so hard he was crying, all from a fart gun.
While in Urbana, we decided to do some of our old favorite things like check out some games from the library and head to Einstein’s bagels to play games all day. After two years gone, some of our people at Einstein’s still remembered us- which made my day.
I don’t have any pictures of Mark and cats for this one, but I do have Mark with Phantom instead. Our friends Liz and Robin (who were featured earlier in the blog when Liz and kids were in China for the semester) had a get together with the China crew of ZJUI who are back in Urbana, and Mark, like he does, gravitated towards the animals more than the people.
And Phantom loved the attention. It was great to get to see everyone again and catch up as it had been a couple months since we had seen most of them.
Our little buddy Ethan (who I’m pretty sure has also been featured on the blog before) was there with his parents and like he does, stole the show with his cuteness. He loved crawling in and out of the doggie door because he couldn’t quite reach/open the door to come in and out like he wanted. Cutest thing ever.
He also loved the kennel, and that reminded me so much of the time when Alex was little and crawled into a kennel at Petco.
Liz and Mark cooking, while Alex shows us his arsenal that Jack and Doren have let him borrow.
It was the beginning of a great couple of weeks in Illinois.
So I’ve been struggling to write with everything going on- I’m not getting tons of real work done either. What I’ve decided is that while we’re in lockdown/shelter in place/ whatever you want to call it with Covid-19 that I’m going to remember the good times and keeping post our adventures until I’m caught up (I’m almost a full year behind now, so there’s lots to catch up on).
I hope you and your families all are safe and healthy!
Traveling Expat Family 