Interesting day so far

Today is another Chinese holiday. It sort of marks the end of the big holiday season. Today is the Chinese Lantern Festival. It also seems to be the last hoorah for fireworks. They've been going on much of the day - some very loud and close! We might be having Eden sleep in our room on the floor once again because if it goes like last year, there will be more and more fireworks well into the night. I understand that the fireworks is just a part of the holiday tradition, and I can understand doing holiday things just for tradition, but sometimes this fireworks thing has us scratching our heads. For instance, Brant often gets up around 5am and goes out for a little walk to help wake up a bit. He was out walking the other morning; it was still dark out. All was quiet as a middle-aged man ambled out of a building smoking a cigarette....Brant just walked on thinking nothing of seeing the man until the man lit off one of the louder double-bang fireworks in the morning silence! It's at times like that that we just sort of scratch our heads and wonder - what's the point? I've also seen it a few times where a couple of guys will go out and light a looong string of firecrackers - the kind that make a lot of noise but don't go anywhere. They'll light the string and then retreat back into the building where they can't even view the excitement they initiated. Anyways, it should be an exciting night once again. Every time I feel like scratching my head over traditions here, I remind myself of many traditions that we do in the States that don't really make much sense either - especially to an outsider.

The other interesting thing for the day....Brant took Eden to have her ears checked on again. It still has seemed like she isn't hearing well, so we thought a follow up visit was in order. He took her to the Chinese doctor/hospital once again. She was checked by an older doctor this time, and this doctor said that there's still build up in her inner ears and that the 3 days of antibiotics (given by IV) she had two weeks before before was not enough. She said that the build up is no longer liquidy, and so it can't just run out. We looked it up online and found something that sounds like what she might have - glue ear. The symptoms seem to fit almost to a T. The doctors (a few doctors gave their diagnosis) made it sound like we needed to hurry with 1 of these 3 different options - 7 days of IV antibiotics(involves going to the hospital every day for 7 days and having Eden hooked up to IV every day - no thank you!), tubes in the ears, or surgery on her adeniod gland (to remove it?)! The "glue ear" page makes it seem like it's no big deal though! The doctor also did an x-ray of Eden's head that showed how her adenoid gland is swollen. So, what we're doing next is taking her to an American doctor tomorrow morning for a second opinion. I sure would like to avoid tubes and especially surgery to remove a needed (for a child) gland! I'll give an update tomorrow after that appointment. Until then...happy Monday everybody! Happy Lantern Festival too!!