They say no good deed goes unpunished and such was the case this weekend. I came to New Orleans to do charity work. What I've actually done while here is sit around in pain. We're talking excruciating, immense pain that seems to have no cure. The right side of my face from my ear to my chin hurts like a bitch, the pain being an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10. Since Monday this pain has been around more often than not and I've been popping Mortin and Tylenol like crazy but they haven't touched it. Thinking it was something dental, I used a rinse meant to heal mouth sores and began using Ambesol and chewing on cloves to numb the pain, but it didn't totally work. Ironically, the only time I had absolutely no pain was when I was eating, which made me rethink the dental issue. The nights were horrendous because anytime I laid down, the pain was constant and unrelenting. I slept a few hours each night, but had to sleep in a recliner so I wasn't lying all the way down. And even then, I was still in quite a bit of pain. Yesterday turned out to be the straw that broke the camel's back. We went out to do some shopping and I had a few moderate attacks of pain, but was able to handle them. Then, after dinner, I had a major attack that knocked me on my ass and would not go away. Usually they last about thirty minutes to an hour, but this one was coming and going in rapid succession for two hours and somehow the pain had ratcheted up even higher. The youngin suggested I go to the ER and even though I tried to fight it, I knew I couldn't make it through another night without sleep so I went.
From the time we started talking about going to the ER and during the entire three hours we spent there, the pain was almost non-existent (go figure). The woman who was handling intake forms was all kindsa bitchy towards me, cutting me off when I was explaining what my symptoms were and then giving me an annoyed sigh when I asked her if I could run about five steps back to the door and grab the youngin to come back to the exam room with me. (I've been to this ER before and know that the first time they call you back is usually to test your vitals and then send you back into the waiting room, and I thought that's what she was doing but instead I was being led right back to an exam room.). Fortunately, my nurse was much nicer and actually listened to everything I had to say. Having thought about it, I was now sure this was an ear issue and not a dental one. Yes, my jaw hurt like a MOFO but the pain was radiating from my ear, plus I've had that odd feeling you get when you feel an earache coming on for about three weeks now. It was never a bad enough pain for me to pay attention to it, so I didn't even think of it when all this started. Then, there's that...plague I had in my sinuses a couple months back. It was a weird virus/cold hybrid of some sort that totally wrecked my sinuses to the point where they haven't felt the same since. My mom actually thought I should see a doc last month because it sounded like I still had a sinus infection. The earache-like pain started to get worse around the time I started forgetting to take my allergy meds. The doctor and nurse came in at the same time and took vitals and took in all of this information before diagnosing me as having a build up of fluid inside my middle ear, between the Eustachian tube and the ear drum. I don't have an ear infection, which is the good news I guess, but the fluid in the ear is causing pressure and pain to radiate down the right side of my face. Unfortunately, there's not much they can do about it. I was prescribed high dose Sudafed and painkillers, but told the doc to slow his roll on the latter. I said that given my history, painkillers were not the wisest course of treatment and he agreed. Instead, they gave me some drops to put in the ear which are basically meant to numb it and thus help with the pain. I took my drugs and was discharged and actually slept through the night pain-free.
So far, it's been better than it was before I went to the ER. There are still about four or five pain attacks a day, and while they're not an 11 anymore, they still hurt like hell. I think a part of that is because my body is just done with all this pain business so even if the pain is a 7 or an 8, it feels worse. And this is from someone who has a very high pain tolerance. Nothing, not even post-accident pain, has ever knocked me on my ass like this has, and I wouldn't wish it on even the worst person in the world. I can't function at all during those attacks. Thankfully, they seem to have reduced in length, now usually lasting about 10 to 20 minutes. I can feel them coming on and right away I take my Motrin/Tylenol cocktail, put drops in my ear and put a warm cloth on the right side of my face and lay down. And that's literally all I can do when one of those attacks hits. There seems to be no way to cut them off before they start so I just have to deal with it. But at least the pain isn't constant anymore, so that's a plus. Still, it could take three weeks to three months for this to fully clear out and I hope it's much sooner than that because I can't handle months of this stuff. Even weeks of it seems daunting. But, one day at a time.
