The Good, The Bad, and The Green

WARNING: If you are easily grossed out by the output of bodily fluids, DO NOT READ THIS BLOG.  I'm not leaving details out.


With that said, I woke up this morning to Isaac's alarm, screaming for me to take my next round of antibiotics, pain killers, and nasal decongestant.  I walked into the bathroom and while doing so, realized that my airways were super-blocked.  It was like breathing through a clogged filter.  Not exactly easy.  I took a deep breath in, which caused me to start to hack like a life-long smoker, but along with the hacking came phlegm.  Large amounts of THICK, DEEP, GREEN phlegm.  Like, this first chunk was easily as big as two peas.  Nasty stuff.  However, it felt absolutely great to get it out of my lungs, or wherever it was coming from, so I kept coughing away.  My husband said the color indicated that it was infection coming out of my body.


Next came my nose.  First I was just dripping a little bit, so I decided to gently blow.  Again, TONS of thick green-yellow mucus.  You know that feeling when you go to blow and you can just feel things waving around in there?  Yeah, that is what it was like in my nose this morning.  Isaac said to blow gently though instead of forcefully because it would be less likely to irritate my ear.  I obeyed, even though I really wanted to just pound it out of there.  There was one blow that I can say with confidence removed at least 1/4 oz of mucus.  It just about filled up the Kleenex.  I literally stood in the bathroom this morning for 15 minutes, alternating between coughing phlegm up and gently blowing mucus out of my nose.


After about 7 or 8 of those interesting minutes, I felt something like a bubble pop in my right ear.  It wasn't as painful of a pop as before, but it felt like a little bubble had burst in my ear.  I was immediately nervous, after my experience the previous morning, and had just opened my mouth to holler for Isaac to come into the bathroom when tons of pressure was relieved from my ear.  It felt SO good!!!!  I turned to look in the mirror again and was a little bit shocked to see fluid running from my ear, down my lobe, and onto my neck.  I decided he should probably know about this....


"Uh.... Isaac??  My ear is leaking!"
"Huh?"
"My ear is leaking fluids... lots of fluids, but it feels so much better."
"What does it look like?  Is it red?  Pink?  What color?"


By this time he had made his way into the bathroom to check it out for himself.  I'd grabbed a couple Q-tips and gently held them in my ear to help remove the drainage.  The first one came out kind of reddish.  But not blood red.  More like, I scratched my knee a couple days ago and now there is a reddish, orange-ish, yellow-tinted scab on it.  That color of red.  The second one came out with a little bit of wax and the fluid was more of a deep brown with a tint of red. (I showed all these to Isaac)  The last two were more of a clear fluid with a tint of pink.  Somewhere in that mix, a big chunk of brown-red-yellow wax came out as well.  I was hoping it was the piece that had been blocking everyone's view yesterday.  Maybe now they'd be able to see something and fix it.


We debated heading out to urgent care, which around here, is similar to the ER, but much quicker.  Since it felt so good to have all that come out, I was in favor of waiting for a little bit to see what would happen.  Maybe that was a stupid idea.  Who knows?  Isaac was okay with that so long as the pain didn't get worse and the drainage didn't turn more red.


This all started about an hour ago and since the original drainage, my ear has leaked three more times.  I am happy to say that each time is less red and more toward the yellow-clear range.  I still have no idea what is wrong with it, and the fact that it is leaking stuff (and normal, healthy ears don't) is probably a good indicator that I should get it checked out.... so we will probably be going to the doctor later on today.


I guess that's one way to get to know people out here.