Listening.... Who Knew It Was So Helpful?

Well... I promised I would keep you posted on what's going on with the ear situation.  I am happy to say that it is 1:32am here and it is officially under control.

So.

I believe when I left you last, my ear was draining more toward the clear-ish, yellow-ish end of the spectrum and I don't think the pain was unbearable.  However, that soon changed.  Bad news bears.  Probably a couple hours later my ear started draining more on the reddish side again and the pain intensified.  Immensely.

We headed out to the urgent care doctor, who, I will do my best to objectively describe.  I will warn you, not everything here is probably said out of love, because this man was an idiot.  I first talked to his nurse, who did a fantastic job listening to what was going on.  I was incredibly impressed by her and took that as a good indicator that he would probably be attentive as well.  Turns out I was VERY wrong.

This ding dong walked in the door, looked in both ears, and declared that I had an ear infection (which, duh, I could have diagnosed myself with that) and that my infection was focused in the anterior part of my eardrum (aka, the front).  Now, first off, neither the ENT in surgery yesterday or my husband could see to my eardrum because of the wax in the way, so how did he?  Easy.  He didn't.  He assumed.

He then also assumed that I was a completely uninformed drug-addict, which, I'll admit, I might have looked like one at that point.  However, the point of urgent care is to get quick care for people who would normally go to the ER, but don't feel like they're quite at that point yet.  You would think he'd be used to seeing a lot of not-so-good looking people.  Anyway, after he wrote me a script for a couple of useless drugs, he proceeded to tell me that even though I'd just had surgery less than 12 hours ago, I shouldn't be taking the pain killers they prescribed until I was in extreme pain; otherwise, Tylenol should be good enough.  And the nasal spray that my allergist recommended that has been working fantastically for me--yeah, quit taking that too.  Claratin or Benedryl should suffice.

It was at this point I couldn't help but open my mouth and inform the ding dong that I thought it was entirely appropriate to engage in pain PREVENTION rather than waiting until I was miserable to try and control it and that I'd already tried Claratin and Benedryl alongside the other OTC drugs for allergies for YEARS before I realized that the constant drainage in the back of my throat was due to allergies and not a mystical year-round disease that plagued only me.

Now, on TOP of all his baloney, he also was very intentionally inching toward the door the entire 7 minutes we talked.  Can I mention that I was the only person in the clinic?  Literally.  The. only. person.  How do I know this for sure you ask?  Well, considering we were the only car in the parking lot and I didn't see a soul while in there, I'm just making an educated guess.  I don't know what in the world he felt he had to rush off for, but it was sure irritating.

After taking one dose of the crap he prescribed, I felt sick to my stomach.  This was my own fault.  He had mentioned that I would need to eat with one of them, but I had been so focused on how furious I was that he wasn't even listening or asking questions to figure out what was wrong with me, I had completely forgotten.  So, while I was on the floor in the bathroom, shaking from somewhat self-induced nausea, my husband kept track of time for me.  The drugs were supposed to kick in after 30 minutes.

Thirty minutes later, I was still shaking--although now more from cold--and in severe pain.  It was at this point we started debating which ER to go to.  We had two options: Henry Ford or Mount Clemens.  Henry Ford is only about 3 minutes away while Mount Clemens is about 15; however, Mount Clemens had all my information already because I'd been there the day before for my Mediport placement.  I told Isaac not to worry about my time in the car because I was going to be uncomfortable either way, and really, what is 12 more minutes after I've already been enduring hours of pain.

He dropped me off at the ER door and I felt like death.  I could barely keep my eyes open.  I'm not sure why, but for some reason, they really wanted to stay shut.  I was pale, my lips were SO dry and kind of white because I was breathing shallowly through my mouth because breathing deeply hurt, and breathing through my nose was impossible.  They took my blood pressure, which is normally about 90/60 and it was 130/80.  WAY high for me.  My pulse was also elevated--normally in the mid 60's, it was almost 90.  I hadn't just run a marathon or anything either.  I'd been sitting still all day because moving hurt my ear and I'd only had to walk about 15 feet to get from the car to the ER door.

They put me in a room and told me the doc would be in soon.  She was a young, attentive D.O. who just so happened to be graduating from Michigan State in about a week.  Her and Isaac obviously hit it off pretty well after we learned that.  She checked things out and said that she couldn't see much because not only was there wax in the way, there was now also pus.  Yuck.  We told her about our experience in Urgent Care and you could tell she was a little disgusted with that doctor as well.  Apparently whenever someone comes in with any type of ear infection, there is a pretty textbook-standard drug to give.  He hadn't.

She gave me prescriptions for a heavy-duty oral antibiotic, ear numbing drops, and a liquid ear drop antibiotic as well.  The numbing drops were magic from the get-go.  She put those suckers in and I started to feel 50% better within five or ten minutes.  I might be a little bit off on the time because I actually felt good enough to fall asleep on the table.  Isaac would probably know more accurately how long I slept for, but when I woke up from my little nap, I felt tons better.

We left and headed out to get the scripts filled, which Isaac found quite entertaining.  Apparently they thought he was a drug addict since we'd already been there once today and two other times so far this week.  They had to call the hospital to see if he was actually supposed to be receiving any more drugs or if he was faking scripts.  I was a little too delirious to find it funny when he told me, but it's pretty amusing now.

He dropped me off at the house and went to grab us some food because we really hadn't eaten all day and it was almost 8pm.  When he got back, it was my turn to pray and I thanked God for good doctors and was tempted to ask Him to curse the bad ones.  I ate a little bit, slept for about another hour, and then took my new, smart-doctor prescribed medications.  I've felt like a walking miracle ever since.  I even started to do some laundry.