temporarily deaf in one ear

You know that child in the walk-in clinic, the doctor's office, the emergency waiting room? Yes, that one, the one who's pulling his ear, screaming, sniveling, crying, complaining; to whom secretly, in all your grown up, stoic, mature pain, you want to yell,

Shut up, kid!

You know what I'm talking about. Well, I now get that kid's pain. Literally. After a couple of weeks of low-grade fevers, constant headaches, an occasionally sore throat and seriously low energy levels, I awoke in the early hours of Wednesday morning in agony. My ears felt like someone was trying their hardest to stick a pen down through my ear canals into my throat and up through my sinuses. Graphic, I know. It gets better.

To the walk-in Wednesday afternoon. The diagnosis, after determining post-ear cleanse that having Swimmer's Ear in the summer has not had great long-term effects on my ears, was a minor ear infection. I was given some basic antibiotics to ward off further infection. Then, antibiotics in one hand, painkillers in the other, it was off to J.'s to watch the final Raptors game of the regular season (which, incidentally, they did win, but still didn't make the playoffs as a result of their horrific late-season slide).

But, a comedy of earrors (I know, I know, that's just awful) things got steadily worse. I got out of the shower later that night almost screaming with pain. I tripped on things, I fell off the side of the bed, I crashed into the wall trying to walk straight. I heard a terrible ringing noise in my left ear. And if it was a pen that was being stuck down my left ear canal before, it had turned into a pointy metal paper opener piercing through. More painkillers.

As I was falling asleep, I started to feel what I thought was water draining from my ear. Nope, actually; not water, but bloody discharge, as it would turn out, all over the pillow in the morning. I couldn't hear out of my left ear, and I was still dizzy as anything. J. and I both freaked a bit, I called my mom for advice (who doesn't still call their mother? Come on, admit it), and it was back to the walk-in early in the morning.

The diagnosis? I have acute otitis media, otherwise known as an acute infection of the middle ear, extremely common in small children and fairly uncommon in adults. The infection got so bad that my eardrum ruptured. Hence the temporary deafness, the dizziness, the discharge, etc. Thankfully, all normal symptoms, although absolutely, excruciatingly, painful.

Now, on stronger antibiotics and using a nasal spray to alleviate the pressure on my sinuses, I'm just waiting to stop hearing in distortion, stop walking in a zig zag, and stop seeping from my ear.

And the next time I see that small child tugging his ear and wailing in the waiting room, I will genuinely sympathize.
Because holy crap does it ever hurt.