Can you hear me now?

As if the stolen truck wasn't enough...

Monday was the Graham-ster's birthday, and in tradition, we went to Olive Garden.  I stayed home sick that day because I was miserably exhausted all day Sunday and absolutely could not handle my 5th period class on Monday.  I rested more, ate some fruit, and went for a walk.  I started to feel a lot better.  I took a shower to get ready for our dinner-and-a-movie date, which was a fabulous shower, and began my daily hygiene routine, which ashamedly includes carefully cleaning my ears with a Q-tip.  This day, I had the overhead ventilation fan on as I'd just taken a shower and was rustling through my medicine cabinet while I carefully swabbed, when I thought I heard a soft knock at the door.  I was a little jumpy but thought it must have just been the sound of the bottle I'd just put on the counter top.  All of sudden, Graham comes pushing through the door, "Babe? Are you..." and I start screaming and shrunk to the floor clutching my head.  The Q-tip had slipped and stabbed me square in the eardrum.  It took me a while to calm down, but the pain was still there, with sharp throbs every few seconds.  My hearing started to go a bit fuzzy, like I was driving in the mountains, but there was no plug like in higher elevation.  I decided to fight through it so that we could have a great birthday date.

We went to dinner and it started to feel better.  By the next morning, my hearing was still fuzzy but the pain was almost completely gone.  My dad, who has Meniere's Disease, was emailing me every hour telling me to go to the doctor.  Everything online said it should clear up on its own, no problem.  I backed down, though, and went to a walk-in place after work.  "Traumatic Middle Ear Infection," he says. I got a shot, two antibiotic prescriptions, and some all too expensive ear drops.  I'm now fighting this very drippy ear, but at least my hearing's back.  I go back to the doctor on Monday.  Hopefully everything will be okay.  For now it's just messy and a bit inconvenient.  My students think it's funny, though, that I have a snail trail of drops and drainage running down my neck half the time.  Yummy.