The Ear Infection

As Friday (the 15th) wore on, I started to notice that I had a sore throat, a sure sign I was getting sick. There wasn’t much I could do to prevent it, so the next morning, I had a headache, a ton of tension in my neck, and a pretty sore throat (although it wasn’t nearly as bad as my last sore throat had been).

Around lunch time, I noticed my ear was starting to hurt too. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gotten an ear infection, so I ignored it until a few hours had passed and it was now so painful that I was dizzy.

I asked a few members on my Squad what was going on, and they diagnosed me with an ear infection. The treatment? Fill a mug with hot water and lay my ear over it, and get a ton of rest. The exact words were, “Be bed ridden.”

I followed the first part of their advice, but there was a movie to watch and a game of Euchre to play, so there was no way I was staying in bed.

That night was one of the worst nights of sleep I can remember. My ear was only growing more and more painful, and by morning, I was in the most pain I’d ever been in. Unfortunately, going to the doctor wasn’t an option, because of the Flower Festival, which, last year, made a team 4 hours late because of how bad the traffic was.

At least, it was out of the question until I passed out (don’t worry, I wasn’t injured) while trying to refill my mug with more hot water. Then we realized there might be something more going on, and we figured it was worth being out late to get some answers.

At the doctor, I was diagnosed with a bacterial infection in my throat and both ears. My left middle ear was extremely swollen, while my right ear was beginning to swell. On top of that, I was also quite dehydrated.

They prescribed me several different medications, but I didn’t learn until I was off of it that the pain killer wasn’t actually helping with the pain, so while I now had stuff to help, I didn’t feel any better.

The next 2 days were spent bed ridden, counting the minutes until I could take my next dose of antibiotics, because I’d noticed that I felt marginally better every time I took it. During this time, my ear also started leaking blood and pus, but the drainage relieved the pressure in my ear, so I welcomed it.

Slowly, I started to feel less pain, but it was still always there, along with constant discomfort from the swelling, leaking, and ringing in my ear. When I started getting up more, I realized that the hearing in my left ear was significantly worse than my healthy ear. In fact, 10 days after the first signs of infection, I still don’t have full hearing, but it’s getting better every day!

This is why I haven’t been posting, but I wanted to share that it hasn’t all been bad. God has been showing me so much more depth to His character through it all, and my prayer life has never been so strong! He’s also been proving that He keeps His promises! He told me early on in the sickness that I would hike Acatenango (a 5 mile hike up 3,500 ft of elevation), and He was faithful! I’ll write about hiking Acatenango and how God showed up in the next few blogs!