Warning: I plan on including all the details, some pictures the not so positive feelings, the ups downs and all together trauma of this whole thing. Sorry if I gross you out. Sorry if you think I'm a little grump with a bad attitude. But here's the story. Read it if you will. (it will be long)
Day one: Feb 15th
To start the ear story you have to go back a ways. On Feb 15th I started coming down with a terrible fever and sore throat. At noon I was feeling a little funny and by 7:00 that night I was breaking out in cold sweats and it hurt to even think about swallowing. It was the kind of fever where you just ache everywhere and it seems as if your very skin is hurting you. I didn't feel congested at this time.
{ Side note: K.C. got me a gift card for a Spa treatment of my choice for Valentines day. He's so sweet! I was so excited to use it so I booked an appointment right away. Then all of this started happening and I kept thinking, oh it's not for 3 more days, this will all be over by then and it will feel so nice to be pampered and relax all my sore muscles... Yeah I had to cancel. But I'm STILL looking forward to that! One day. }
On Feb 17th
I was still suffering from these aches and spending the night soaking my clothes with sweat. My sore throat was bothering me a lot so I thought that a nasal rinse and gargling salt water would help to fight that off. I tried it (as I've done many times before) only this time when I was blowing the water out of my nose I felt something in my left ear kind of making a popping noise. Similar to when you're ears pressurize and they 'pop' then you can hear again. Only nothing changed this time except it felt slightly irritated. That was the evening of the 17th.
Feb 18th
By morning it hurt. Bad. I was in so much pain that I could hardly stand it. K.C. had a training all day in Hurricane for Akela's Council and so we all went out to mom and dads and me and the kids stayed there while K.C. went to his meetings. We thought that probably I just had a wax build up and my ear couldn't clean out so we put wax drops in to soften that and started flushing my ear out. We seemed to be on the right track because we got several large chunks of wax out. I didn't feel better though, in fact I felt slightly worse for the irritation of the repeated flushes. But I figured that it was just that, irritation and that now that the problem was out of the way it could go ahead and heal up. I had taken a Tylenol to take the edge off the pain it but had absolutely ZERO effect. So I was just trying to tough it out. I mean HELLO I'm pregnant! I'm scared to death of hurting my baby and so I was determined to not be a wimp.
Well by the time we came home that night just breathing hurt my ear. I never noticed how when you breath it rushes past your ear on the inside. It was very very painful. It was awful! The pressure was like nothing I've ever felt and as I tried to think "oh com on it's not that. I can handle this, I mean, I've done a home birth. I've had my share of painful experiences, this is totally do-able...." Well that changed pretty quick to "Ok this is the worst pain I've EVER experienced BAR NONE! It is relentless, there are no breaks, nothing eases it. Nothing soothes it. Nothing can even take my mind off of it. This is with out a doubt the worst experience of my life!"
Feb 19th - Sunday, Day Four
It seems to be a pattern with me that I tough things out and try to just deal with it until the most inconvenient times. Like the weekends. Sunday was Stake Conference. There was no way I was going to be able to go. And that made me sad. I really enjoy Stake Conference.
Another interesting pattern with me is that I can't stand to spend money on myself when I feel like we can't afford it. And if there was ever a time when we couldn't afford a medical bill it was now. So I kept thinking I could just tough it out. But I was still not taking any pain pills and although, with the help of my dad, K.C. and I were trying every thing we could think of nothing seemed to help.
I called my midwife and she suggested a few things like Aloe Vera juice, Hydrogen Peroxide, Essential Oils, Something warm on the ear. K.C. made a quick trip to her house to get some of the supplies. We tried all of it. With no real effect.
We tried hot packs, cold packs, hot baths and showers, breathing steam, more ear drops in case there was more wax. We tried lots of stuff. K.C. spent the whole day running me things. It hurt so bad that I couldn't hardly stand. So K.C. had to help me whenever I moved. Which was basically just from the chair (where I stayed 99% of the time) to the bathroom.
By that night we had exhausted every home remedy and every suggestion or idea that we could think of and I was only getting worse. So Although it made me sick to my stomach to think about the financial end of it. K.C. packed me up and took me to insta-care.
My Friend Melody agreed to watch the kids for us, so they went there and waited for my parents to pick them up while K.C. and I went to the only place that was open to try and get some answers. (We've never had a very positive experience with insta-care so I wasn't excited about this option. But I also didn't know how to make it through the night without help so we went.)
The only thing I remember about waiting in lobby here was that I couldn't think, I couldn't move I couldn't even swallow without wishing I was unconscious. The only thing I could do was breath. Although that hurt I just tried to zone out and go into as much of a trance as I could. I focused on the sound that my breath made on the inside of my head and tried to count to three while breathing in and four while breathing out. I picked a spot on the wall (it was a purple spot :) and just stared at it, trying to minimize my existence as much as possible. Well THREE and a HALF hours later (they told us 20 min!) we saw a Dr. that didn't listen to us. Pulled on my ear, looked in it but very briefly, muttered some stuff and left. 30 minutes later we were still waiting for him to tell us anything at all and both of our impression from his actions was that we didn't feel comfortable with him. I never thought I'd do this but we decided to leave. We knew a Naturalist Dr. that my dad had reached that said he could see us right away and we were much more willing to trust him than what this guy said.
As we walked down the hall he came running after us with a paper saying. "Oh, here's your prescriptions! I don't know if they're safe for pregnancy.... At that point I stopped listening. Are you KIDDING ME? You don't know if they're safe for pregnancy and you're prescribing them to me anyways? What? Suspicion confirmed, we didn't trust the guy. We didn't like how he'd treated us. We were totally unsatisfied. So we left.
We went straight to Dr. Lymann Who showed up with in 15 minutes and worked on me for about an hour. He asked if the insta-care Dr. had mentioned the white growth on the inside of my ear? Why no, he didn't! By the time I left, the white growth was gone, and I felt that progress had been made. I didn't feel any better yet but I felt like someone could help me.
I kept waiting for something that someone did to take the pain away. But nothing did.
We got home late and mom and dad kept the kids out at their house. We spent the night in survival mode. K.C. on the couch me in the chair. Neither of us slept much that night. Every few minutes K.C. got up to do something to help me and we spent the night very busily but not very restfully. At some point in the night my ear started draining. I've never had stuff come out of my ear so it was very surprising. I just kept wiping it up and figured it would stop soon. I mean there's only so much room in there!
So since I couldn't sleep anyways, I just kept wiping it away and waiting for it to stop. It was dark so I couldn't really see it that well but didn't think much of it.
Feb 20th - Day Five (tired yet?)
Saying "same thing" doesn't seem to do justice to the horrible experience that I was having but this day was still much like the day before. Terrible.
Some of the things that I noticed on this day were that whatever was coming out of my ear looked like this:
This is what came out in about 15 minutes.
Bloody!? Yeah that's not scary!
We kept doing everything we could think of and nothing really helped much.Things started to just blur together at this point.
But when night came and my ear was still gushing yuckiness we had to figure out something. I wanted to sleep but a cotton ball was soaked within minutes and had to be changed, gauze, same story and that meant no sleep because I had to continually mop up the mess.
Brilliance struck K.C. and I at the same moment. What is more absorbent than a sanitary napkin?
So we got a little creative with how to secure it and viola...
special right? Well at least it was effective. I slept a little.
Feb 21st - Day Six
Drainage: Full bore
Swelling: So bad that my teeth didn't touch at all.
Ringing: Very very loud
Pain: Bad
Pressure: It felt like someone was trying to inflate a balloon inside my head.
Hearing: None
We went to Dr Lymann again and he said he wanted me to see a specialist just to be sure what was going on. He recommended a really nice ENT in town so while I was getting worked on K.C. called and set up an appointment for a few hours later. The only problem was the Specialist was out of town. But the PA was available. (If I'd only known then what I know now!) I was told that he had this special tool that he could vacuum out the ear with and it would instantly relieve the pressure and pain.
I kept telling myself "Just a few more hours. I can do this!"
K.C. had done computer work in that office before and had met the PA he was hoping it was a different guy by now because he really didn't like the guy he knew. No such luck. Same PA.
He wasn't very nice, he wasn't gentle at ALL OR sympathetic. I was pretty much crying the entire appointment and to top it off he said "Yeah your ear is really inflamed here. That's a sign of infection. You see I can make you cry just by touching the outside of your ear here."
NO KIDDING! Yes I'm crying! Stop hurting me just because you can! (I didn't like him much. and he made me mad!)
He did vacuum out the ear. But to my complete disappointment it had no relieving effect whatsoever! He told me I had Swimmers Ear, prescribed some stuff and told me to go home take the prescriptions for 10 days or so and it should be fine.
It was nice to be able to take some pain meds and get the pain under control a little, it helped but didn't take it away. I was scared to death what it might do to my baby but kept trying to remind myself that it would be ok.
The rest of the day blurred by in the same restless way as the days before. But I think I was able to rest a little.
Feb 22nd - 23th (Days seven - eight)
Same same same. living on green smoothies. Everything blurring together. Had to stay as still as possible. Any movement that wasn't absolutely necessary just wasn't worth it.
Feb 24th - Day nine
On the 24th I was able to touch my teeth again.
To show you just how many different things we tried. Dad remembered that my uncle Lyle used to use a huge magnet to help with ear pain. So dad found the biggest speaker he could find. (apparently they have magnets on the back... who knew!) and brought it down for me, I just kept it close to my ear and it actually helped. Odd.
{Please be aware that any and all pictures of me during this are NOT my best. Don't judge}
Feb 26th - Day 11Felt better enough that I tried to move from the recliner and sleep in my bed. It didn't exactly work very well but the change was nice. My body hurt from the chair.
Feb 27th - Day 12
Drainage: Slowing Down
Swelling: Not much
Ringing: Very very loud
Pain: Under control as long as I stayed on the pills. If I eased up at all I was sorry.
Pressure: Getting a little better.
Hearing: Could hear a little bit around the ringing and stuffed up feeling.
I was able to get up and walk around a little unaided. But bending over what a huge no-no. You would not believe how much the pressure and pain could increase just by lowering my head level with or below my heart... bad. very bad.
Feb 28th - March 3st (Days 13 - 17)
The prescriptions were gone now and the pain was reduced enough that I could function but the drainage was still happening and the ringing and hearing were staying about the same. I was totally wiped out and had practically no energy to do anything.
On march 1st I rode along in the car to watch Craig do his lemonade stand. After being in the cold wind for a little while I had to get back in the car. I felt really stupid when people would try to talk to me and I couldn't hear what they were saying.
It seems like with my one ear being useless by good ear gets overwhelmed easily. it's weird but if two sounds are happening at the same time one of them seems to fill up my ear and I can't hear the other. Hard to explain, very weird and very frustrating.
Now we figured we just had to be patient and wait for all the 'Good results' to come.
March 4th (Day 18)
Only 2 day left before we had to be ready to go to Disneyland! I was excited and sad at the same time. I didn't want to ruin it for everyone but because of the kind of deal it was we had to go or we wouldn't get reimbursed for it. But that's another story.
I woke up and found that K.C. was wearing a sweater and was all wrapped up in a blanket looking miserable. It's never good sign when K.C. is bundled up. Turned out he had the terrible fever that started all this off for me. The fever had been going around out at mom and dad's house too and only Annie seemed to have suffered any ear trouble from it. (Annie's followed some of the same patterns as mine but seemed to be on a much more mild rout. I'm so glad too! I'd feel terrible if she had the same thing!)
Anyways K.C., my rock, my caretaker, my 'It's gonna be ok we'll get through this' my everything was now the one who could hardly move! And I could hardly take care of him. He had a sore throat that was very sever too and it made me sad to watch him hurt. We made for a pretty pathetic little group about then. I just wanted to melt into a little puddle. It was just so much all at once, I wanted to have that cheery admirable, faith inspiring attitude of "all is well and we're happy and smiling" but in reality I just didn't know what to do. Cry. Cry and try to help K.C. were pretty much the only things I could think of to do so that's what I did. and I tried to block everything else out. Too much to think about seemed to make it worse.
The kids had been off and on at mom and dads and off and on here but with both of us down and out they went back out to mom and dads house. They at least were happy and not neglected out there.
... Well I'm tired and my arm hurts from typing. I'm sure you're tired of reading.... If anyone even made it this far. SO I'll finish this later... At least that's my intention.
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