Is that a noodle in her ear?

Breena has been having trouble sleeping for a month now. She has been struggling with night terrors, has trouble falling & staying asleep. We have tried every idea we could think of to help her out and finally decided that her stress level (and mine for that matter!) had had enough. She has spent the last week or so sleeping in a sleeping bag on our floor. Breena woke up late Tuesday night with her usual bout of screaming. I picked her up and was immediately gassed by a horrible odor! I did what any self respecting mom would’ve done, the mom sniff. Nope. No poop. I called for Dave to help me look for this mystery odor. Together we nailed it- it was coming from her EAR! Bree had tubes placed back in July so I figured she must be getting an ear infection (although it was not draining). We got her cozy in our room and we all fell back asleep. The next morning I left a message for the ENT nurse. I then got curious and took our maglight flashlight to her ear and was surprised to discover a foreign object! It looked like a macaroni noodle. I assumed it must be the tube coming out. I texted my sister about Bree’s stinky ear & the noodle looking thing. She responded “What if she really did put a noodle in her ear?!?” Horrified, I called the ENT nurse again since she had not returned my call. I explained that Breena’s ear stunk and that I think I saw the tube in her ear. She told me that she “highly doubts” I could see the tube. To which I responded, “it’s either a tube or she stuck a noodle in her ear!”. The nurse did not think this was funny. She reassured me that tubes do fall out & there is nothing they will do to stop it. She called in drops for an ear infection and that was that. I kept an eye on the noodle ear for a couple of days. On Friday Breena had a fever (which could have been caused by the stomach flu that attacked our family but I decided to withhold that information from the nurse) so I called the ENT nurse back again. I gave them her history, reminded her about the noodle, and said I really think she needs an antibiotic. She shot me down again and told me to use the drops. By Saturday morning the tube had fallen out. So while Breena still has an “Owie Ear” I am so grateful that there is no longer a noodle sticking out of my daughter’s ear!