So my ear got unbearable last night and I went to the emergency room, and I had a real learning experience:
Never go to the emergency room in a college town over St. Patrick’s weekend.
I think I was possibly the only patient not vomiting green beer. At any rate, they inserted a wick in my ear, gave me some painkillers (finally) and some strong drops and oral penicillin, and even though I didn’t get home until 4 am, I already feel better.
I hate going to the emergency room, especially when I had just been to the doctor Thursday morning, but this had to be done. I was in agony and getting worse. In my lifetime, I have been through the windshield of a car and bit a molar in half, exposing the nerves and suffering for two days with an exposed nerve so the swelling could go down before they fixed it . I have fallen off a tank, breaking my collar bone and 4 ribs. I have broken any number of fingers (every finger has been broken at least twice), dropped a wooden bench on my big toe breaking it, and suffered several concussions. I have even been hit in the testicles so hard by a lacrosse ball during a game that it broke my cup. I have had all of those injuries and many more.
And all of that paled in comparison to the pain of my ear ache as it progressively got worse yesterday. It was all consuming. It throbbed, it burned, there were flashes of pain streaking from my inner ear down my neck and into my shoulder. It gurgled, and sloshed, and ached some more. My jaw was sore from trying to equalize the pressure. The entire outer ear area and my jaw was swelling. It was awful. I was seriously near tears, and it was not so much just the pain, but that I could not think about anything else. Every thought, every second the ear pulsed, was how MUCH MY DAMNED EAR HURT.
At any rate, I got a few hours sleep, and already my ear feels better. The miracle of modern pharmaceuticals. Hopefully this will be well on the way to clearing up before I go to the ENT specialist on Monday or Tuesday.
Consider this an open thread.
Krista
I’m wincing in sympathy with you, John. It’s strange — I’ve had agonizing pain on several occasions below the neck (the kidney stone was fun, needless to say). But any sort of pain in your head — you just cannot function at all. I’m prone to migraines, and I’d gladly have a kidney stone every month if it meant never having another migraine. I’m really glad to hear you’re feeling better.
Of course, you do realize that your male commenters are now all feeling rather puke-a-rific after reading your description of that lacrosse injury.
joshua
You’re the political blogging equivalent of Mick “Cactus Jack” Foley.
calipygian
And because parents insist on doctors prescribing anti-biotics for every sniffle their kid has, even if it is a viral infection, we are rapidly approaching a day when an earache like yours will kill because of the over perscription of miraculous modern pharmaceuticals.
grandpajohn
Been there done that, the most excruciating pain was when they had to pry my swollen ear open just to insert the wick
Prospero
I’ve read somewhere that a lot of those new strains are coming out of pig farms, where animals are being fed antibiotics by truckload to compensate for horrible conditions they live in. Would be a fitting end for humanity if super-plague that kills us all came from such place…
Soliton
I can sympathize..
I went through that several times before I was eight..
The thing that stands out most in my mind though was when I was four and rolled down an embankment that was thick with stinging nettles.
I’m approaching sixty today and have had many injuries and nothing made the impression on me that the stinging nettles did.
rmp
It’s hard not to think about Star Trek 2 (Wrath of Kahn). You haven’t been off world have you?
Zifnab
This is one of those romantic wartime adventures our President missed out on, right?
Jesus Christ! How are you not some sort of oozing, sobbing, bed-ridden paraplegic? Now we know why you took up blogging. Any other activity seems to leave you horribly accident prone. For the sake of yourself and your readers, I’d like to start a “buy John some safety pads” fund.
Scotty
Is this one of those ‘if you think that’s bad…’ posts? I can’t say I’ve been through a windshield, or been pegged in the nuts by a lacrosse ball, but I fractured both arms, a leg, bones in my hand, and tore up my knee in a 5 year period when I was a kid. But I’ve been perfectly fine since I started drinking.
demimondian
Lessee…I’ve rolled a car off a thirty-foot cliff, forcing the windshield through my head and arm, broken a collar bone, dislocated both shoulders, had a car pull out in front of me when I was riding along a about 40, caught a pedal coming off a mile long hill, had my nose broken in six places in a fight, gone head first into a stair riser, breaking my neck, have arthritis in my knees so bad that I can no longer climb a flight of stairs unaided…yeah, John, the lacrosse injury has me beat.
mac
I guess that defines what a level “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure” means…
Yeow!
EL
I’m glad you’ve got some decent painkillers, and glad you’re feeling better. Er, it wasn’t really oral penicillin, was it? That’s not the best choice against otitis externa. A floroquinolone like Cipro would be more what I’d expect, or perhaps Augmentin – amoxicillin clavulanic acid.
Everybody in the World
The American People agree: Cole’s a mess.
shera
When I was 16, I had surgery to remove all my wisdom teeth and 4 other teeth (yes, I have a really small mouth). Even though I had taken a Valium that morning at the doctor’s direction and received an IV general anesthetic, I woke up in the middle of the surgery. Just as the surgeon was driving his hammer into the chisel to break up my wisdom tooth for removal. First and only time I’ve ever fainted.
Two years later, in college, I impaled myself on a nail or something and put a quarter-sized hole in my thigh. I didn’t faint, but the pain was truly unbearable. I guess life isn’t any easier in ‘modern times.’
minstrel boy
the old out in the country dodge we use to avoid emergency rooms is to stop off at the feed store. almost all the major antibiotics are there, over the counter, both oral and injectable. also, they are the same drugs, made by the same manufacturers, but they are more than half the cost.
tell them you have a dog with swimmer’s ear and they will hook you up right.
jeff
Sounds like you have otitis.
ThymeZone
Let’s see …. 40 years of migraines, some toothaches and root canals, outer ear infection, impacted wisdom teeth, heart attack, Darrell.
Check, check, check, check, check, check, check. Of them all, the migraines were probably the worst. The phrase “praying for death” comes to mind. I am not sure what nature had in mind when she invented pain at that level. Just kidding about Darrell.
Make sure you take all of the penicillin as directed, don’t stop taking it when you feel better.
John Cole
That is what I got- Ciprodex drops, Augmentin (isn’t that a penicillin with a potassium c.), and percocet.
wvng
Ah, John, thanks for the memories. Back in the 70’s I worked on a research project in South Florida that included diving in Biscayne Bay right next to the city landfill. No matter what I did to prevent it (let me count the ways), I came down with swimmer’s ear after every trip.
And, after all these years, I still remember that specific pain, and the sweet mercy provided by antibiotics.
So glad you are feeling better.
mark
Sorry about the experience, but thanks for the laugh. Glad you’re recovering, finally.
jake
Jesus Christ people. I’m not sedentary by any measure but fuck, I’ve fractured one finger.
OTOH, I’ve had four surgeries and after the last I can second John’s suggestion to avoid EDs in a college town during any substance abuse intensive event. After half a night of projectile barfing and the rest of the night dry heaving I’m pretty sure any jury would have let me off if I’d killed the EMTs who made jolly jokes about bad acid. Fuckers.
Unfortunately I was too weak to do more than mumble “Shuddup,” and I couldn’t even puke on those bastards.
mellowjohn
jesus, john! i thought i’d had it rough between 30 years of playing rugby and various bicycle racing crashes.
but i don’t want to sound like mel gibson versus rene russo in whatever lethal weapon movie they started comparing scars.
just a note to say, you’re right: ear aches are the worst. many years ago i had to have my eardrum punctured to keep it from bursting. THAT was a bitch.
get well soon.
Ted
That wouldn’t surprise me, considering it’s well known they’re used heavily in cattle factory farms. How brilliant of us. The human population is only as large as it is, so overprescribing antibiotics can only cause its problems so fast. What a stroke of genius to expand the ‘petri dish’ to another, fairly close species and speed up the process.
ThymeZone
How about a hamster with idiopathic atrial fibrillation? Do they have something for that?
thx
demimondian
Oh, don’t worry about it, Jake — I’ve had surgery to rebuild a shoulder, my nose straightened (with an adverse reaction to the anesthetic, just for fun), and a variety of other fun procedures to boot. And, at my last checkup, the family practice type looked at me and said, “I’m going to refer you to an orthopod now. That way, you can get to know him while you can still walk. You’ll get to know him much, much better in a decade or so.” Joy.
Oh, and, yes, I have chronic headaches, too. Yes, they’re bad, but I’ll take them over a neck and back in spasm, which gives you all the pleasures of a migraine, coupled with the unmistakable sensation of utter immobility.
ThymeZone
Oh yeah, been there. The sudden-onset spasm, with its instantaneous excruciating pain and inability to move. To bring this on, I recommend moving boxes of books while using bad body mechanics. One minute, working, next minute, lying on the floor going “help!”
Compared to being hit by a car (done that) and thrown and dragged by a Shetland pony (done that) and turning blue with asthma (done that) ….. the back thing is really the most exciting.
The Grand Panjandrum
I’ve always been pretty healthy (knock on wood) and only a couple non-life threatening injuries that could have been avoided had I not decided to take up my Uncle on his Asian Vacation invitation.
Glad to hear you are getting some relief from your obvious agony. Enjoy the mellllloooooowwwww.
Sirkowski
I think I’m gonna faint…
jake
I missed the lax ball v. human balls mention the first time out. Thanks for highlighting that. Really. Gonna go hide under the bed now.
Mike D.
But John, don’t you see, if there was even a 1% chance that you knew where an armed atom bomb was quietly counting backwards to itself in the back of a nondescript step-van somewhere in Manhattan… I mean, the big picture here, not just one guy yanked off the street, see what I mean? These people we’re fighting aren’t LIKE us. This country is a big baby, and if people want it to go on smelling like baby powder someone has to change its diapers. Sure, it’s ugly.
And when you finally broke down and implicated your college roommate and the guy who split up with your girlfriend one long weekend after she dumped you for him — exactly the kind of critical human intelligence that led to your brief dislocative residential intervention; it’s amazing what people remember after a little mild discomfort (like you said, you hadn’t thought about your roommate stashing Semtex under his bed in years, you know?) — you get the morphine and the meds, 72F room, soft bed, clean sheets. We aren’t monsters. Maiming… nope, check; mediapathic scarring or visible wounds… nope, check; organ failure… not even, a big check mark. So in a very real and legal sense, you have nothing to complain about and, of course, no recourse to the law. Can I top off that morphine for you?
Okay, this isn’t at all fair on you, but as a recovering Republican you should work on keeping your memory green by whatever means necessary. Some people have never been seriously uncomfortable in their lives, after all. Which reminds me, I fell down and skinned my knee once, and then the tiger was right on top of me. Nine days in a regeneration tank. It’s true, no physical injury that requires the Blue Tube of Doom can possibly suck as badly as regenerating the missing bits. Being partially eaten by a giant cat, except backwards and in slow motion. No fucking thanks.
Notorious P.A.T.
Wow John, I hope you continue to feel better.
Raenelle
I had ear problems all my life. About every six months, I’d be in the doctor’s office with an ear ache. Apparently, my ears flake, and the flakes drop into the wax, so the wax builds up, etc., etc. Various doctors tried various drops, and nothing worked. Until, about 20+ years ago, an HMO doctor–one of those very over-worked guys who was really seeing about 5 patients an hour–told me to try putting a dab of hydrocortisone cream (cheap, over-the-counter generic hydrocortisone cream) in my ear each night–a treatment no one ever recommended, before or since. However, I’ve been doing that ever since, and in the past 20+ years, I’ve been to the doctor over my ears maybe twice.
LiberalTarian
I can relate to the ear ache. It starts small, but by the time you are begging the doctor to MAKE IT STOP, it leaves an indelible impression. I don’t put up with pain in my ear–my id freaks out and assures me that if I don’t fix it RIGHT NOW that excruciating pain will be back. But, it has been years since they gave me antibiotics, usually just a decongestant.
The antibiotic resistant bacteria issue is going to get much bigger:
–CAFOs using antiobiotics as prophylactics, untreated waste stream
–people stop taking the antibiotics when the pain stops (leaving the more resistant bacteria behind to gain dominance in the population)
–excreted antiobiotics in our waste water and discharged into streams and rivers (along with all those other drugs and hormones), forcing the environmental population of common bacteria toward resistant bacteria (which is then passed to other bacteria via horizontal gene transfer, neat trick)
It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
Mary
JESUS, John. You have my immense and cringing sympathies. I’m glad things have turned around and that you’ll feel even better soon.
All you need now is for Tunch to acquire a taste for your ass.
Mary
(I’m not trying to start a blog spat between two of my favorite cranky Johns,of course. It’s just a little nudge to open the space-time continuum between two cool blogs, that’s all.)
John Cole
I really can’t describe how much that hurt, so I won’t bother. Things were swollen for a number of days, though. It was no fun.
I also fell off a roof of a fraternity house two stories onto concrete after drinking a bottle of tequila. I have had some interesting injuries.
John Cole
I like Scalzi. I really should read him more often.
ThymeZone
What?
What?
What?
{ sorry, had to }
p.a.
Dear God don’t waste the percocet on yourself when you’re hurting! They’re soooo much more fun once you feel well. Tough it out soldier…
Jon H
Did some beginner Doctor try to jam a two-sizes-too-big scope into your swollen ear canal?
I got that pleasant experience back in 96 in Cinci.
Ben
“I have even been hit in the testicles so hard by a lacrosse ball during a game that it broke my cup.”
One of my high school lax coaches had the same experience — the shattered remains of his cup were mounted on the wall of his office; I can’t imagine what that would have been like if the cup hadn’t been there to absorb much of the damage…
myiq2xu
I sense you were regretting your hasty rejection of my “hot lead ear enema” suggestion from the other day.
“It hurt so bad I thought I was gonna die and was afraid I wouldn’t.
BTW – Hillary wants to know if you’re ready to switch your endorsement?
She still has the voodoo doll, and lots of needles left.
D-Chance.
That “firewall”, that is Texas… yeah, let’s hold off on that for awhile.
The Other Steve
I used to get strep periodically when I was a kid. Used to get fed doses of penicillin.
That is, until I became allergic and came down with a combination of strep throat and the allergic reaction to the penicillin. Man did that ever suck. Just bloated right up and was that way for several days.
I remember when the fever finally broke. I haven’t pissed that long since. Just sat in the bathroom for an hour pissing away. Oh man, did it feel good.
Anyway, I’ve been out of action for the past week recovering from the bird flu. Worst stomach virus of my life. I couldn’t eat for 3 days, and then just barely kept down some crackers and 7-up. It’s been a week, and I still feel a bit dizzy when I stand up.
bago
Triage on new years day is fun. Got triaged behind the redneck — famous last words (hey guys, watch this). The dude who drank hairspray for alcohol and passed out in the street, and a methadone overdose. I was just trying to figure out how badly I was bleeding in my GI tract. Having 2 bottles of tums at every desk I work at should have been a warning sign.
Asti
ThymeZone Says:
You’re just too damned cute for your own good.
empty
Jesus Christ John, I have gone through floods, earthquakes, shootings and bombings, and I have lived a lot longer, but my list of physical injuries don’t even BEGIN to compare with yours. Take care child, and I hope the recovery is quick.
D-Chance.
BTW, today marks a somber anniversary for our area’s residents. The Wiki links to various photos and news articles are as grim and heart-wrenching as any you’ll ever see or read.
benr242
I had persistent earaches for several months when I was 8, and it turned out that I had a defective middle ear bone (aka anvil). My hero is a dead organ donor who gave me theirs.
And I’d have to agree with you John, there’s nothing worse. It made me cry every day. Granted, I was 8, so I’m sure a lot of things made me cry, but what differentiates this is that it so mentally scarred me that several decades later I can still vividly REMEMBER crying when I was 8.
Asti
I too suffered otitis problems as a child. I have a broken anvil as a result. I never got a borrowed anvil, unfortunately.
Mary
Oh, man. Don’t follow D-Chance’s links unless you have the time and privacy for a good cry.
myiq2xu
Misogynist!
Delia
I’m not a stoic and don’t hold out as long as you do. Also, my medical group has an urgent care clinic that’s open evenings and weekends that allows me to avoid the horror of the emergency room in most cases. My main source of pain is chronic migraines. It’s pretty awful if I don’t take my meds in time.
Seth
Remember when you pushed your poor little brother into the pool after he had removed the earplugs that protected his tube-implanted ears and he had an earache for two weeks? Payback is a bitch.
Krista
Cute. :) My brother, who is deaf (although he’s not really deaf anymore since he got his cochlear implant), just got himself a new t-shirt. It says “Good talker, bad listener.”
I’ve been pretty fortunate as far as injuries go. Broken fingers and toes from sports, mostly. I did have one spectacular injury at age 6, when an older kid threw a rock at me and hit me in the cheekbone. Missed my eye by half an inch. It took a big chunk out of my cheekbone, so now, if you press your finger a bit below my eye, you can actually feel the big gouge out of the bone. It’s great fun for grossing people out.
(It wasn’t fun for my mom, though, who was the ER nurse on duty at the time, and had the heart-stopping experience of seeing her own kid being hauled out of an ambulance with her hand over her eye and blood pouring down her face.)
Good times.
demimondian
Well, since this is an open thread, I’m going OT to menation the Bear Stearns Is No More.
OK — consumer debt crisis? Check. Commodity price hike? Check. Government in bed with big finance? Check.
Oh, yeah, and Republican in the White House. Check.
So, are we looking at 1899, 1929, or what?
4jkb4ia
Feel better!
TenguPhule
In all fairness this is because the tank would have run him over. Then backed up and do it again just to be sure.
Chuck Butcher
I’m glad this is turning around for you John. I’m also glad pain meds do something for you. I’m fortunate to have a very high pain threashold because they do almost nothing for me. I have to overdose to the point of risking fatality, fortunately aspirin works pretty well. Doctors and dentists think I’m kidding, right up until they have to give me an overdose for someone 3x my weight. It seriously sucks, if I ever have to have real major surgery they’re probably going to kill me. I’m also allergic to penicillin, discovered the hard way – damn near killed me.
Migraines, my wife had carotid artery surgery, both sides. Two days after the second one while home her blood pressure regulation system in her brain went haywire, her head tried to explode, that’s one way to get a bill for $85,000. She seemed to think she had a headache, you don’t want to know how much morphine they gave her. She was still crying, passed out. Scared me green.
Xanthippas
I wanted to throw up just reading that. John, how the fuck are you still ALIVE?
OniHanzo
This whole thread reminds me of that stupid scene in Lethal Weapon 3, where Mel Gibson and Rene Russo start comparing scars and end up spooning in bed.
Mexican Joe
Well, you all have convinced me of one thing, I don’t want an earache. Hope you are feeling better.
Original Lee
John, another important time to avoid the ER almost anywhere in the country is in early July. That’s when the newly minted residents come on duty. We had the pleasure of taking my daughter to the ER on July 3rd (also a Sunday) because she had become dehydrated from puking and a high (>103) fever. Turned out she had strep, but the resident had never done a strep test before and totally messed it up. They refused to have a nurse or somebody else with experience re-do the test, too. We had to wait for the urgent care clinic to open so she could get a valid test and the necessary meds.