I woke up 2 days ago with a shooting pain in my ear. I’m not one who is prone to ear infections. Maybe I’ve had swimmer’s ear a time or two when I decide to live in the water for the summer, but that has not been the case this summer. The only thing I have been doing excessively is listening to the longest book ever on audible.
I’m not sure if earbuds can give you an ear infection. What I am sure of is that over the last two days it got progressively worse. Day one, I mentioned it to my kiddo who says, “I just saw on instagram if you put a clove of garlic in your ear like an earbud, it will heal you.” I’m a fan of holistic advice. So I went to the kitchen, got a clove of garlic, peeled it, cut the end off and shoved it in my ear. Then I googled it. I guess you should do that first, but as you saw yesterday, I pretty much do everything bass ackwards. I found the article about the garlic. There were all kinds of steps that included wrapping said clove of garlic in gauze before inserting it into the ear. That ship had sailed. The raw clove was just chilling in my ear like an earbud. It didn’t help. But it did amuse me for about 20 minutes. I thought about taking a picture, but then I didn’t. I should have.
I went to bed after eating 4 ibuprofen and 3 benadryl. I figured something had to work.
I was wrong.
I woke up in even more pain than I went to bed with. And I woke up around midnight and tossed and turned and cried in pain until 5 am. When I finally fell asleep, it was time to get up and go to work. I got up, got dressed, took the kiddo to school, and then went straight to the emergency room. The whole side of my face hurt and my head. It felt like my hair hurt. So, of course when I get to the ER and they ask me what’s wrong, I told them, “I have a brain sucking amoeba in my ear or a brain aneurysm.” They all stared at me until I smiled and said, “I’m kidding, I think I have an ear infection.” Then one of the nurses said that I’d be surprised how many people come in with stories just like that and are dead serious. I told him I could only imagine. And then another of the nurses said that they pulled some weird cricket out of a woman’s ear just a couple days ago. She said it was still alive and the woman could feel it moving. I assured her that there was probably nothing nearly that exciting happening in my ear. They took my vitals and sent me through the fast track.
The doctor came in after about 2 minutes. Looked in my ear. Asked me if I was a swimmer. Told me that my ear was a little red and there was definitely some fluid in there. No brain eating amoebas. I was a little disappointed. But he was super good looking for an older dude and he was running his hands through my hair because I told him my head hurt. He said he was “checking for sores.” I think he just thought my hair was soft. He gave me some antibiotics and gave me the green light to take all the benadryl I wanted (just kidding, he said one, I heard three).
I thanked him for curing me. He said he’d call in a couple days to check on me. If all goes well, my next ex boyfriend will be a doctor. I’ll keep you posted.
RouletteWeekend 