Ice Pick
2004-04-16,

Ow.

Sorry about the lag, folks, but it was for good reason. Well, two good reasons: a) busyness; and b) pain.

Section A: Busyness

The workload picked up a bit last week when Kelli left the department. Therefore, less time to sneak in some quality writing. Team that up with trying to finish those damn questions, and it pretty much killed the rest of my journaling week. Then there was the weekend, during which I rarely get to spend any time at the computer.

Monday brought more busy, and my first rehearsal for my sudden membership in �A Grand Night for Singing�, which is a Rogers and Hammerstein musical montage. I get to put my tenor to some use, for a change. No word yet as to what song in which I might be featured; nothing has, as yet, been assigned. I�m sure it�ll be a song I hate- I can feel it.

Anyway, Tuesday I had the day off to go downtown to one of the Federal buildings with H and get ourselves fingerprinted - again - this time for the INS. You�d think, in the advent of enlightened security communication via the Dept. of Fatherland Security, that we�d only have to get fingerprinted once and then it would be strewn across the applicable cosmos. But no, we had it done twice, once as above and once for the agency. I do not know why the agency needed them separately.

And what did Wednesday bring? More workiness, and then, on to part two.

Section B: Pain

Wednesday night, after getting home from rehearsal, my ear started bothering me. By night�s end, it was pretty obvious that I�d gotten some sort of infection in there. After waking up on Thursday, I (wisely, it turns out) decided to stay home and make a doctor�s appointment, even though the discomfort at the time was pretty manageable. I managed to snag an appointment for 1045am, and all was well. That is, until around 9am, when the Ice Pick arrived.

It entered my left ear, slowly and persistently, until it was firmly planted. Then some invisible force would jostle it around every few minutes. At least, that�s what it felt like. Owie ow ow. The best part was that I got to drive the 20 minutes to the doctor�s office (and back) like this. Everything was taking forever: traffic lights, the wait for the doctor to check on me, the drive home. I even had to stop and get gas, the wind sending large ice shards directly onto my ear drum.

Turns out it�s a middle ear infection, something that we adults rarely get (more common in kids). Usually, said the doctor, he doesn�t prescribe any antibiotics and just lets the thing play itself out, at it usually only lasts for a couple of days. But since I was in obvious pain (at this point it was all I could do to keep from crying in public), he set me up with some penicillin. I didn�t ask for pain meds, though, mainly cos I knew that there was some leftover Tylenol 3 in the cupboard at home waiting for me. Codine good.

I spent most of the rest of the day lying on the couch, staring blankly at the TV and waiting for the meds to do their thing. And there wasn�t even anything good on TV. Thank goodness at least fior the Battlestar Galactica mini-marathon on SciFi. I had some nice half-dreaming flashbacks of building the Galactica out of Lego when I was a kid.

The codine made me sleepy but didn�t do much to dull the pain. The penicillin at least managed to turn the Ice Pick into a mere dull, heavy ache within 2 hours or so. By 6pm I was able to be up and about for extended periods of time and even eat a little bit of dinner. Yay. Then it was back to the couch. By then I was just exhausted from hurting. Pain really sucks up most of your energy. I did have fun, however, trying to keep up with the clear fluid that was leaking out of my ear, carrying with it, I imagine, the dead bacteria that were causing me such strife.

I woke up this morning feeling much better. Instead of pain, it just feels like there�s a tiny little fist balled up inside my ear, and it�s ringing, like just the left side of my body had been at a really loud rock concert. For most of the morning I was getting The Spins due to the pressure on my inner ear. I was starting to wonder whether I�d be able to drive home by the end of the workday, but luckily it seems to have subsided.

The strange thing about having your ear so plugged up is that you can hear what�s going on inside your head really clearly. Taking a shower was interesting; I could hear the water bouncing off my head from the inside. There�s also the constant �tha-thud� of my heartbeat in my ear. Which is reassuring in it�s own way.

This weekend the wife and I traverse our way to DC, wherein (wherenear, really) we shall see friend David and meet his new fianc�e. Hopefully my ear will cooperate and I won�t be much of a fuddy-duddy over the course of the weekend. Looking good so far. Oh! which reminds me, time for more meds.

-- End Transmission --

p.s. Two great quotes I heard yesterday:

�If Sting retires, will he change his name to Stung?� - Colin Mocherie on Whose Line...

�I don�t ask for permission, I ask for forgiveness.� - Quentin Tarantino on Today