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A week ago this past Wednesday, September 29th, I went to my doctor for a routine visit. While he was writing a prescription, I asked him if he’d look in my ear when he was done, “because I’ll forget if I don’t ask you now.” That sentiment would grow to be fairly amusing, the fact that there was a point where I could forget my ear pain. That looks pretty melodramatic on preview, but trust me, it gets better.

He looked in my ear, and told me I had both a middle and external ear infection. He complimented me, remarking that it was quite a feat to pull off both at the same time. He prescribed Amoxicillin for the middle ear infection and Floxin drops for the external ear infection.

By Friday it had gotten pretty uncomfortable. By Saturday it was really bad. I called my doctor’s switchboard, but he was not on call, and I got connected to a really stuffy and dismissive doctor who assured me that Amox was strong enough and to give it a few more days. The next day, Sunday, it was unbearable. I was popping Percocet all day (that was Niall’s birthday.) Immediately after the cake I had to go in the other room and sleep. I called my doctor’s switchboard back, hoping he’d be back on call. He wasn’t, but a third doctor was — for the next twenty minutes, then the dismissive doc would be back. This third doctor was great. When I described the infection she was very concerned and called in Cipro, which I picked up.

I missed work on Monday, loaded up on Percocet. I was out of sick days, so I took a vacation day now that my workplace has become fairly, let’s say, particular about handing out sick days. On Tuesday it was still bad, but I had to go back to work. I called my doctor to ask for a referral to an ENT specialist, and was told that I could self-refer with my insurance. On Wednesday, I saw the specialist. He took one look at my ear and said, and I quote, “You have a terrible ear infection.” He told me to stay on the Cipro but that I could discontinue the Floxin, as the external ear infection had cleared up. He told me that there was lots of infected pus behind my eardrum, and that when the infection had cleared up, I would be left with lots of uninfected pus behind my eardrum, and that my hearing attenuation (about 60% loss of hearing) would last for weeks. He said that the only thing I could do to speed that up would be to “drain” it.

Now, when I was a kid in Japan I used to get terrible ear infections. On one doctor’s visit, they lanced both of my eardrums. It was one of the three most painful times in my life, joining the time I had a stent in my ureter after kidney stone surgery and the time I plunged my hand through hot coals at a barbecue. I was not interested. He told me I could come in to see him as a “courtesy” on Friday, even though he normally did not see patients then.

Wednesday night I started getting a lot of drainage from the ear. Clear, slightly yellow watery discharge, and the most unbelievably foul-looking greenish-gray discharge the consistency of Dijon mustard. I told Jenn I though my eardrum had broken. Bless her heart, she didn’t believe me.

Today, Friday, I saw the ENT again.  And he told me that my eardrum had ruptured in two places. Apparently a dual rupture happens less than 1% of the time that the eardrum ruptures. One hole was half a millimeter in size, the other was small enough that he could only see it with the microscope that I believe he really enjoyed sticking down my ear. He explained that he never really got to see these ruptures, as they normally happened in children and they wouldn’t let him stick a microscope in their ears. He noted that my ear infection is “as bad as they get in an adult,” and was convinced I had contracted it from my infant son, even though my son hasn’t been sick and is almost never around other children.

He then proceeded to suck the foul stuff through the hole in my eardrum with a long vacuum. That was really loud and rather uncomfortable. He then prescribed Ciprodex drops, which consists of Cipro and a steroid. When I put the drops in, they go through the hole in my eardrum, which is the entire point — but I can taste them as they pour down my eustachian tube, which is a mind-blowing experience.

I’ve been given a “less than 10%” chance that I’ll have permanent hearing damage as a result. That’s still a pretty high threshold, as my boss noted, but my hearing’s already much, much better after having the stuff sucked out. As long as the hearing doesn’t get any worse, I could probably learn to live with this maybe 10% loss of hearing. But I hope it gets better; my hearing is very important to me.

I think I’m going to take it easy this weekend.

Sat, 09 Oct 2004 01:26:58 -0500
Under medical
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