Levels of Pain

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to rate pain? I remember when I told my sister I'd gotten a tatoo, she asked how bad it hurt. Did it hurt worse than labor? Having just had a child, that was her reference point for pain. Having not had a child myself, I couldn't say. I imagine labor's worse. But I'm not up for finding out. Even when given a scale of 1 to 10 it isn't that easy. My 10 is probably not the 10 of a Navy SEAL. So unless you know my frame of reference, what's the point?

Last night I suffered some of the worst ear pain I've ever had in my life. Right up there with migraines, if not worse....Standing up it felt like someone had wrapped a fist around the middle of my inner ear and was pulling steadily down on it....Sucked big time. Worse than my tatoo, certainly. Of course, when the doctor asked me to rate, on that scale of 1 to 10, how badly my ear hurt, I gave her my best "You-didn't-listen-to-a-word-I-just-said" look, and replied "200."

I had a bit of a sore throat on Sunday, nothing major, just some sinus drainage. I know, TMI, but it's my blog. Sunday night had the weirdest dream about my right ear hurting so bad, and I couldn't get in to see the doctor, and then couldn't get the prescription filled, and then I was running from the bad guys and all sorts of weird stuff. Woke up with my right ear hurting. Go figure. A couple ibuprofen, some sudafed, and I was good to go. Until about 3:30pm. Then the pressure & pain started in my left ear. By 4:30 pm I was downing aspirin again and begging around the office for anything with pseudoephedrine in it. No luck.

Got home and took the last Sudafed. Then lay on the couch with the heating pad, debating about whether or not an ear infection of the magnitude the one I apparently had, merited a trip to the ER, and trying to talk myself through the pain. (I kept thinking, the body obeys the brain, the body obeys the brain!) I had to do something. WalMart for Sudafed or the ER? WalMart won. Hey, it was closer, and cheaper.

Of course, it irks that I have to stand in that darn pharmacy line just to buy sudafed. Some idiot tried to cut in line in front of me and I didn't even have to say a word. They changed their mind after one look at my face. [g] Got my sudafed and was swallowing one as I walked out the door.

By this point, I was in pretty bad shape pain wise, for me. Heat didn't help, so I ended up with a bag of frozen green beans on my ear/head. Works almost as well as the peas. Which apparently I ate at some point. Not last night. Note to self: buy more frozen peas. Downed 3 more ibuprofen at that point, and passed out on the couch. Last thing I remember thinking was "Body obeys the brain, body obeys the brain..."

Woke up several hours later with no pain! Plenty of pressure, my ear was still clogged. But no pain. Yay! (Or so you'd think.) Woke up around 3 am and my ear felt kinda weird. No pain, just...moist. So I got up and got a trusty q-tip and cleaned my ear oh-so-gently. Q-tip turned pink. Lovely. I couldn't sleep after that. Until I turned on the history channel. Something fascinating about the Anglos and the Saxons and how they became the Anglo-Saxons after fighting for so many centuries, etc.

So I got into the doc's first thing this morning, and you know what? I don't like it when the doc looks in my good ear and says "Wow. Interesting." And then looks into the ear that's hurting and says "That's the worst ear infection I've ever seen in an adult." Gee, thanks, doc!

I've ruptured my ear drum. Just a little bit, it's not bleeding any more and she couldn't even see it. So that's why there wasn't any more pain. Who knew? I thought the full dose of sudafed plus the ibuprofen and subsequent freezing of half my head did the trick.

Now I'm all dosed up with antibiotics and sudafed and aspirin/ibuprofen (I can alternate those every 2 hours for the pain if I really need to, who knew?) and a nasal spray. And I get to go out of town for work tomorrow. Oh goody. :) At least I won't have to cook!