mousey health

Let me start at the beginning. Last Tuesday I woke up with a stuffy ear. I went to work, didn't worry about it, and then went to Mercury Grill with mother (prior post). As the night progressed, it hurt a little more. When I woke up Wednesday, I thought I had an ear infection. Since I'm a weenie about my ears and was having trouble hearing, I decided to go to the doctor. It's never a good thing when he looks at your "affected area" and can say nothing other than "Oh...hmmm." He thought it might be something called polychondritis, but it was most likely cellulitis. How the poo does someone get cellulitis in their ear? Whatever. He gave me a super duper dose of Augmentin XR, and then he told me if it wasn't markedly better by Friday morning to call him back so we could do IV antibiotics. I went back to work.

By Thursday morning, I was in the hospital. As Wednesday night progressed, the pain became unbearable. Within a few hours of being admitted, I was on IV antibiotics, IV morphine, and some sorta otic drops. As Thurday progressed, I saw my Internist, an ENT, and a Rheumatologist. The ENT caused the most pain EVER when he decided he had to suction some edemic crap out of my ear canal. My father said he was being super gentle, but I felt like he was using a jackhammer and an acetylene torch. He ended up putting a wick in my ear so it would be easier to get the drops down in the canal.

The next few days kinda run together because I was in and out of sleep, pain, and pseudoconsciousness. Simply put, they all together (doctors that is) believe it is not cellulitis. They are going to check the latest blood draws and the MRI from today (in conjunction with a possible biopsy tomorrow) and confer. I'm not the happiest person because if it is what they think it is, I'm in for a long haul. It's nowhere near a death sentence so quit freaking out (you know who you are), but it will be a lifetime of treatment and maintenance. But if there is one thing I have learned in the past 4 days, I HAVE AMAZING FRIENDS AND FAMILY!!!

Thank you all. I love you all! I'll post an update when I know anything new.