No Can Has

There's this little thing called 'health'. At the moment (and the past four and a half weeks), it has done a splendid job of avoiding me. And while it is annoying, I'm not bedridden or stuck in a hospital and I have never been more grateful for that fact. Now would just not be the time, thanks but no thanks. Thank goodness for doctors, and medicine and priesthood and orange juice.

Back in the middle of december I started getting these headaches. That's one more thing I have to be extremely grateful for; throughout my life I've been blessed with scarcely few headaches. It just doesn't happen very often. Hallelujah. So it was weird when that area right behind my eyes would ache and I couldn't concentrate on anything for too long before my vision would go all skewonky and crosseyed and just totally unable to focus. It was strange that the blood roared through my brain like crashing waves through a small hole in the reef. I took some advil (by the forceful hand of my fiancee), drank some caffeine, tried your every average remedy for that terrible brain-clenching pain. But it wouldn't budge. Soon, right after Christmastime, I began to notice that every single time I swallowed, my ears would crackle and pop like I was suddenly on some long road trip that required changing elevation every five minutes (And unfortunately, I am truly not exaggerating....at all). I felt pressure on my sinuses. I hoped it would go away.
Alas, it did not.
I became lethargic; in energy and in personality. Sadly, my poor fiancee received the brunt of this particular side effect and it took quite a toll on his patience. I was stubborn and did not want to require someone else (i.e. my parents, or Mark) to spend oodles of money to get some silly advice from a silly doctor on some silly headache issue. I have a hard time giving my own health serious contemplation or credulity.
Eventually, I was sleeping worse than my usual tossing and turning and the dark circles under my eyes (often mistaken for good ol' whoppin' shiners) began to appear as if I'd gone in and had permanent makeup applied in a very inconvenient location. I basically looked like a dolled up zombie. I have never seen such a vibrant shade of bluish-purple adorning my undereyes. The headache was my constant companion. My ears popped at the slightest incline of my head, audible even to someone standing within talking distance.
I finally agreed to have Mark's dad take a look in my ears and try some home remedies. He used his nifty little ear scope thingy, noticed some white and black "fun stuff" in my ear canal and suggested we try warm tea tree oil.
So we did.
We also put hydrogen peroxide down my ears.
Have you ever done that?
IT TICKLES LIKE THE BLOODY DICKENS, I TELL YOU.
I realize I just had a terrible British potty mouth, but please pardon my french.
I had a real hard time laying still. It didn't hurt or anything, not during the treatment anyway. But it wasn't seeming to help any.
About January 10th, I finally alerted my parents to my predicament and my dad pulled out some old ear drops he'd kept in the medicine cabinet and I started putting those in every 4 hours. And whaddya know! It started to hurt less! I was taking benadryl at the same time and could definitely feel it when the drugs wore off. But I figured I was getting better if it was beginning to hurt less.
Turns out those eardrops? Not only are they an antibiotic but they're also a painkiller. WELL POOP. My life is now a lie. Totally not getting better.
After an exceedingly tearful, and yet remarkably healing (emotionally, that is), conversation with Mark I conceded to forego my inhibitions and see a doctor. And so! Today, my mom and I went to the "doc in a box" aka the minute clinic at CVS and he scolded me for a bit on putting hydrogen peroxide in my ears and alerted me to the fact that it's illegal to partake of someone else's prescription (which makes total sense now that I think about it....baha). He looked in my ears and without any hesitation proclaimed, "I can't treat you here." He diagnosed some sort of "fungal infection" which just sounds SUPER lovely, and referred us to a few different medical offices.
My mom ended up taking me to my grandmother's doctor (an old people doctor, I felt quite silly sitting in that lobby) and he caught onto the fact that the white "fun stuff" in my ears were actually just scars left from when I had tubes put in my ears as a baby. Oh, goody. So it's not an outer ear infection.
According to this doctor, I've got a case of "eustachian tube dysfunction" which makes me feel like he's calling me a less-than-satisfactory crustacean but apparently to fix that all I gotta do.....

....is take some steroids.
Um.
WOOHOO.
or actually I guess it's called Cortazon and Sudafed (they're drugs, screw spelling).
Anyway, if this doesn't fix it within a week I gotta go see a eyes/nose/throat specialist. STOKED.
[ahem-hem...sarcasm]

I'm just glad I'm not dying. Which is awesome. YAY FOR LIVING!!