He korero mo taringa mamae

Tu Tangata, Issue 24, 1 June 1985, Page 24

He korero mo taringa mamae

Philip Whaanga

“Papa, papa, taringa mamae, taringa mamae.” Ko tenei te tangi o tetahi o aku tamariki. Ka titiro ahau ki tana taringa mamae, engari kaore i kitea te raruraru Ka tangi tonu te tamaiti i a po i a po. Ka awangawanga ahau. Ka heria e maua ko taku hoa wahine kite takuta.

Earache is one thing I didn’t think I would be writing about in my magazine but seeing as Tu Tangata wants to educate parents in looking after the health of their whanau, my experience as a parent may help others.

Of my five children, two have already had grommets inserted in their ears to drain away fluid that was affecting their hearing. And my six month old Hana will have to wait a few more months til she too can have her ears done.

Our first child to have his ears affected was little more than a baby when he used to wake up crying in the night holding his ears. As he was not yet talking it took a while to figure out what was wrong.

Fortunately my wife and I had good experiences with the Clarence Moore Medical Centre in Palmerston North at the time of our first child so we had no inhibitions about being a pest by visiting regularly for the slightest trouble. I guess it was with later experience that we gained more confidence in handling childhood illness.

Anyway our doctor explained that a build up of fluid in the inner ear wasn’t draining away because the ducts were blocked. He explained that tiny grom-

mets would have to be inserted under general anesthetic in the hospital that would drain the fluid. These grommets would grow out naturally as the problem cleared up.

He did point out that sometimes children have more than one insertion of grommets if the problem reoccurs.

So our Kahu went into Middlemore Hospital with his mother as he was still being breast-fed. Thankfully he was out fit and well the next day. He’s now five, his hearing is perfect and his bellow is something to be heard.

Our second child to have ear trouble, had recurring pain in both ears on and off for six years. It never got so bad that she was incapacitated, but it did make for some sleepless nights for her and us, as she used to come into our double bed.

We used to see the doctor who’d prescribe Amoxil, which usually meant she had an ear infection. This antibiotic became a favourite drink amongst our children. The course of medication would be finished and the ear trouble would clear up. Kei te pai, engari not for long.

Josie had a hearing test at school in her first year and it showed hearing loss in one ear. We had to wait for an-

other bout of ear infection to clear up before a second hearing test could be done. This took some mucking around with specialists and long waiting lists but finally the decision was made to have the grommets inserted.

She went into Wellington Hospital late last year with me and the operation only took a day. I was brassed off that the preparation time is so long, and unnecessarily so for young children.

Some advice here for parents: If you’re asked to bring your child in on a Sunday evening for a Monday operation, tell the hospital you’ll bring the child in on the Monday morning. I found that coming earlier than necessary is just for the convenience of hospital procedure and is tough on children in strange surroundings.

It’s also tough on older patients who have to put up with boisterous children who wake up much earlier than others and make a lot of noise around sick people.

Also the fact that I wasn’t allowed to be in the recovery ward when my little girl came out of the anesthetic, put unnecessary stress on my girl.

Heoi ano, I now find the potiki of the family, Hana, will probably need her ears fixed also. She’s had a runny nose almost since she was born. She too is on our favourite medicine, Amoxil, which sort of keeps the pain and cough at bay.

I’ve been told that Polynesian children are more likely to have ear trouble and that certainly is borne out in our family.

I hope our experience with taringa mamae will encourage other Maori parents to be watchful of their children’s health and not hesitate to see a doctor or nurse if the child seems fretful or withdrawn. My wife and I are glad we did.

I have been asked to comment on the Editor’s experiences with glue ear in the family. I agree with him. This is a terrible problem. Are we all going about it the right way? Perhaps “terrible” seems to strong a word, but I think it is indeed bad that so much glue ear is affecting our youngsters. A lot of research is being done here in New Zealand both on how to prevent it and how to treat it. In the meantime, Mr Whaanga’s children are lucky that they have concerned parents who seek help. The first treatment is, of course, an antibiotic. This is not necessarily the one that he quotes (in fact, some ears are resistant to this) but an antibiotic for long enough to prevent the rapid relapse that he describes. Often the operation may be avoided by the proper course of antibiotic. Engari, sometimes the condition is not an infection at all and antibiotics are not useful. Thus, eventually, grommets may be necessary. A grommet is a tiny plastic tube that sits in the eardrum to ventilate the ear. It is not a drain. The fluid is drained away at surgery; but the grommet is inserted so that air can get at the middle ear lining to return it to normal.

A warning here the condition is not necessarily taringa mamae. It can be completely painless. For this I have coined the phrase taringa hupe. The build-up of sticky glue caught behind the eardrum may be silent. The signs may be apparent inattentiveness, poor speech, insecurity. Since a child develops best in a secure and stable environment, the world seems topsy turvey if the hearing fluctuates. Suppose the right ear is deaf for a while. You then hear your mother come into the room on the left of you but you can see that she is actually on the right. Na te aha? It is

all too confusing for a child’s comprehension. Thus one of the early signs of taringa trouble may simply be behavioural confusion, irritability, aggression, withdrawal.

These children need family support even more than other children entering hospital. It is right that the parents should be with them. But what happens. We tried this in the hospital where I work. The ward toilets could not cope with all the mothers queuing up for an anxious mimi! Also, some hospitals need to admit children the day before, so that proper anaesthetic evaluation can be carried out. Grommet insertion is regarded as a small surgical procedure. Kei te pera pea. It is still an anaesthetic. It is still a major responsibility for the doctor to take over

someone else’s child. Each doctor has his own routine of care and if that means an over-night admission, kei te pai; there is no room in medicine for a casual, she’s right approach.

I like Philip’s closing remarks. Choosing those warning words ‘‘fretful and withdrawn” reveals his deep personal awareness of the problem. As parents, we are all the resident experts on the subject of our own children and it is therefore up to us to recognise those warning signs and get help. Early treatment will often avoid the need for grommets.

Department of Health, ear, nose and throat specialist, Mr Eisdell Moore comments:

NOTE: The Department of Health produces a leaflet “Taringa mamae Earache” which is available free from your public health nurse.