Gross

So Sunday night I came home from a whirlwind weekend feeling pretty low.  I had some bad allergies and muscle aches, which I had attributed to walking five miles for various graduation functions, volunteer shelving at the library, cleaning out and doing home improvement on 3 of our upstairs closets, being outside too much during allergy season, and generally not sleeping well for a collection of reasons.  I hurt, but I thought it was nothing.

Monday morning I woke with a major sore throat, which I thought was just a run-of-the-mill head cold.  I got them all the time as a kid.  I wrote in to work that I was taking a day to sleep it off.  Within an hour, the pain had moved from my throat to my ears, and I texted my sister (the audiologist) for advice and my mom for a heating pad.  I took some OTC painkillers and laid down to ride it out after a Google search turned up that most doctors recommend the same unless the ear infection is "serious" or lasts too long.  

Within three hours, I was in so much pain I was unable to get up from the couch.  I still hadn't heard back from my mom or sister.  Then fluid started to come out of the afflicted ear, the pain dropped substantially, and I thought I was going to be okay--I texted my sister with this information, and she quickly called back to tell me that the relief had come because my ear drum had burst (relieving the pressure) but that I was in for a good deal of new trouble soon.

I went to sleep with a tissue pressed against my leaking ear, and I woke up at 4 in the afternoon once again in too much pain to do much of anything about being in pain.  My mom dropped off a heating pad and I put on a brave face while she fixed me some noodles; she had the kids with her, so we both wanted her out of my house before anyone got infected, but she promised to send my sister over.  My sister stopped by after work with her ear scope thingy and gave me a look before saying that yes, my right ear drum had perforated and was leaking blood and pus, and the left ear drum looked like it could follow.  She asked for my insurance card and started making calls while I continued to lay on the couch moaning pathetically.  My husband got home somewhere in there, they shuffled me into less revealing sleepwear and then Mr. B whisked me off to the after hours ER. 

My heart rate was 150, my white count was 20 (the doctor told me she considered 7-9 to be "high range"), and I was severely dehydrated.  When I told them that my ear drum had popped after only about 4 hours of ear pain preceding, they went into emergency containment mode thinking I might have Bacterial Meningitis because it had come on so fast and so serious; however, this was quickly discounted due to a lack of other symptoms.  They IV'd me and put me on drugs to calm my body down.  Four hours later they were still looking for the missing infection somewhere in my body to make my white count so high, but they never found it.  They sent me home with prescription painkillers, antibiotics, and advice to stay on the couch for a while.  On the bright side, everything that happened during the visit--the EKG for my heart, the medications, the blood tests, everything--only costs us $100 because we're on Kaiser right now, and have a flat rate for ER admissions.  

I now have temporary hearing loss in my right ear until the ear drum closes and heals, and my ear is discharging some gross stuff.  The biggest issue has been the pressure--the tear in my ear drum is small, which is good because it will likely heal on its own, but is bad because it doesn't drain efficiently.  Fluid keeps building up until it reaches critical mass and pushes out, and the pressure is hella uncomfortable.  

Exciting, right?  My word of the week is gross.

Alula