My Ear Infection, Part II

So as I am recovering from my back issues, my right ear decides to get in on the action. In January it decides to become infected. I take the antibiotic Avelox which I then discover I am severely allergic to. But that’s another story you’ve probably already heard. The ear infection goes away. Then it decides to return about 3 weeks ago, but this time it’s worse. I am put on a course of antibiotics again.

After 10 days the infection is still there. So on the day I run out of antibiotics, I go in to see the doctor at 9:15 AM. It’s an early appointment so it should be a quick one. Although the pain is tremendous, my substitute doctor decides to keep me waiting until 10:30 AM. He walks in, looking mad at me for some reason, and looks in my ear. He sees nothing wrong and asks me a few questions. The pain in my ear is actually radiating all over the right side of my face and into my jaw and my eye. I tell him that while cleaning my infected ear that morning I found bright red blood on the Q-Tip. I also tell him I have been completely deaf in that ear for a week. In spite of his many years in doctor school, he diagnoses me with TMJ, a condition of the jaw usually associated with stressed out women. I argue that it’s my ear but since he’s the doctor, and I don’t know what I’m talking about, he sends me home and tells me to take some Tylenol.

Upset, I go home and continue taking Tylenol. On Friday, the pain gets even worse. On Saturday morning it wakes me up early because it is so bad. I call our “on call” doctor and thankfully it was someone different. He immediately called in another prescription for me and some antibiotic eardrops. Relieved, I headed to Walgreens and began my new treatment. I made an appointment, with a different doctor on Monday morning.

On Monday, the smart doctor looked into my ear and immediately said, “Ow, ow, ow, ow.” I believe there were four “ows” total but you know I am prone to exaggeration so let’s change that to three. He said it was severely inflamed and he recommended I see an ear, nose and throat specialist. The only problem is that it generally takes 3 weeks to get an appointment.

Well, praise the Lord, the best folks in town just happened to have a fluke appointment open on Thursday. I kept on the antibiotics but they seemed to do little. I showed up on Thursday with my inflamed, deaf right ear, and its complete medical history. After filling out the paperwork, I sat and watched a flat panel TV with the CNN heath channel on and learned that Minnesotan’s are the healthiest people in the US. Since I was way more healthy as a Minnesotan than I have ever been as a Californian, I believed the study. And I figured that’s because in Minnesota they teach doctors that if someone has a raging ear infection and it does not go away, it is probably still an ear infection and not TMJ.

So now it’s my turn. I sit in a special “ear chair” specially built for looking into ears. The nice doctor from Yale comes in and we have a chat. We discuss my ear and my TMJ. He looks into my left ear and all is well. He looks into my right ear and says it is clogged with junk. Then, just for kicks, he decides to look into my nose. He then jams this needle nose pliers looking thing up into my brain, squeezes the handles together and I imagine myself looking like I have the nostrils of a racehorse. As he shines a spotlight into my brain, the nurse walks in and says, “Oh, so you’re looking up his nose.” I thought that might have been very obvious and she probably did not need to announce that to either the doctor who was jamming pliers up my nose, or to me. He switches to the other nostril and gives it the same treatment. Now. at least, I have matching over-extended floppy nostrils.

Now he moves back to my right ear. He grabs a small steel funnel and jams it in. Then he uses these special spotlight goggles attached to the special ear chair. He gets in real close then jabs a smallish needle vacuum way in there. I can hear the sucking sound. I can feel him poke into something. He then slowly pulls it out. “It” turns out to be an ear fungus. It was the size of a Peanut M&M. It was greenish, smelled very rancid, and had curious white tentacles with little microscopic puffballs on the ends. I am fascinated and grossed out. I look at the thing, then at the doctor and say, “Thank you.” “Excuse me?” he replies. “Thank you for pulling that thing out of me.” He giggled silently but his shaking caused the thing to fall off the end of his needle ear vacuum and it made a small wet plopping sound on the floor. The nurse quickly whisked it away. He then jammed the needle back in and sucked out more stuff. It hurt like mad but I did not care, for it was ridding me of the fungus.

All this air moving in my ear caused me to become instantly and severely dizzy, as it agitated my inner ear. He said that this was rather common then declared I was to go off the antibiotics immediately. I had to sit in the chair for a bit before I could get up. He then prescribed Lotrimin drops for my ear and sent me on my way. I sat in my car for about 10 minutes waiting for the dizziness to go away so I could safely drive. “No officer, I’m not drunk. I just had a giant fungus removed from my ear. Really.”

Then it hit me. I HAD A FREAKING MUSHROOM GROWING IN MY EAR. And the ear doctor just prescribed jock itch medicine for it. Let me say that again in case you missed it. The doctor pulled a giant, rancid, fungal mushroom with tentacles and puffballs out of my head and then prescribed crotch-rot medicine to make it go away.

I drove back to church and then got very nauseous. I took a Dramamine and hoped this would be the end of it. I spent the evening at a “Girl Talk” tea party taking photos. The next day I met a friend for lunch and then got food poisoning. I spent most of the day Friday and all day today in bed. During one of my many visits to the bathroom I placed my foot in cat puke.

It is now 9 PM and I am feeling better. Sheri is downstairs playing piano and the cat is sleeping. I will be laying down soon and putting athlete’s foot drops into my ear. All will be well. And, just for fun, I am attaching a photo of the fungus from my ear lest you think the puffball thing is embellished. Keep your ears clean, folks. And don’t ever use Q-Tips. And what ever you do never ever scratch your crotch, pick at your feet, then dig in your ear.