Reagan's Ear

We need to find a new pediatrician.  Ours is good, but he is on the other side of GR.  Right now, I am trying to get through to him.  First the phone was busy.  Now I am holding.  Now I am being transferred to the front desk to leave a message...grrr.  OK.  We have an appointment for 4:30 pm.  That's a crappy time to have to drive through GR, but, oh, well....The appt. is actually with our doctor's wife, who is also in the practice, but I have never seen or met her.  She only works part time, or at least has only worked part time over the past few years so she can stay home with her kids.

Reagan woke up on Tuesday night, crying.  She didn't want to nurse.  She was kind of grabbing at her ear, so I presumed it was her ear.  I gave her a couple of doses of chamomile and Ben and I sat up with her and walked her a bit, and she eventually went back to sleep.  Yesterday, she seemed fine.  This morning, she seems fine, too, but her ear is all crusty.  

I'm really a little concerned about her ears.  Is it possible for a child to have an ongoing ear infection and not really show symptoms?  When she was probably six months old, the doctor said she had redness in her ears, but not an acute infection, and it would likely go away on its own.  At that time, she really didn't show any symptoms, she had a cold and she occasionally tugged at her ear.  In February, she got sick again.  It came on really fast, and her eyes were nasty goopy. We were at Kate's wedding.  Ami saw her, and called in eye drops.  She said she really needed to look in her ears, but she didn't have her otoscope (IMAGINE, not bringing your otoscope to a wedding, tsk, tsk, LOL).  We assured her that we would follow up with our doctor.  I did.  The nurse told me stuff was going around and unless she got worse, just to keep doing what we were doing.  So, they didn't want to see her.  She got better.  

She has had a rash on her body since about December.  I have wondered whether it could be caused by a systemic infection.  I don't even know why that has occurred to me.  But my fear is now that she has had an ongoing ear infection.  She doesn't speak as clearly as her sibs did at this age.  What if it has damaged her hearing?  

Sorry, going off the deep end, here.  She's only 15 months old.  Her speech is not out of the range of normal, by any means.

In other news, Reagan is crazy about her daddy.  This morning, she was very distraught when he went into the bathroom to get ready for work.  And, even moreso when he left for the day.