What a pain in the . . . ear?

This last week didn't quite turn out like I thought it would.  I went to bed last Sunday night thinking that I was coming down with an annoying ear infection.  I had a head cold and had spent my day coughing and blowing my nose and my ear had started to hurt a little, but I was sure it would be just fine.  I woke up at 1 a.m. on Monday morning in a lot of pain.  It didn't take me long to realize my right ear didn't just have an infection, it had probably ruptured.  I didn't sleep a wink the rest of the night and the pain just kept getting worse and worse.  By the time Instacare opened at 8 a.m. the only thing I could really do was pace back and forth and focus on my breathing.

The Dr. at Instacare confirmed that it was a ruptured ear drum and gave me antibiotics and 3 pain killers to get me through the first 24 hours.  I immediately took the antibiotics and pain pill, but instead of helping me feel better I only got worse as the day wore on.  By 2:30 p.m. I was absolutely miserable with a capital M.  I was nauseous and throwing up and I couldn't eat or drink or sleep and I was still in excruciating pain.  On Tuesday morning the antibiotics had enough of a hold on the infection that the pain subsided, but instead of feeling better I was sicker than sick and continued to throw up all day and night.  Since I only took one of the pain pills (hated it) I thought maybe it was the Ibuprofen and Tylenol that was making me sick, but when my Mom said she thought it was the antibiotic I stopped taking it immediately and called the next day to get a different antibiotic. After taking one dose of the new antibiotic and sleeping for 2 1/2 hours I woke up a new woman. Wow.  What a difference!  My stomach wasn't sour and my ear pain was under control so after 3 miserable days I finally felt better.  I had no idea an antibiotic could make someone so sick, but now I know and I'll never take that one again.  It took me a few days to catch up and recover from being down for 3 days, and I'm still not back to full energy, but I've very grateful for my health these days and am on my way to a full recovery.  It will take a while for the fluid in my ear to drain so I still can't hear very well out of my right ear, but in time it should be just fine.

So, what did my family do all week?  I have no idea.  I'm sure they survived and I'm pretty sure none of them starved to death.  Britton had 2 soccer games and they all had their normal church activities and music lessons.  Mostly they went into survival mode and made it all work. It's never fun when Mom is sick, but they can be troopers when they need to be.