Still Crazy After All This Ear

The ear is still clogged. I can’t tell if it’s getting better or if I’m just getting used to it. At any rate, because it’s not seeming to improve on it’s own, I guess I just have to figure out how to work around it and assume life as normal. The problem is, working around it. I hate large groups or crowded places because I can’t hear and I really am not as chatty as before, because everything I say is repeated in stereo inside of my ear. It’s driving me nuts.

Physician Heal Thyself

Monday, after an excruciating day of clock watching, counting the seconds until I could go to the ENT, I finally went. I fully expected him to look into my ear and mumble about how it was completely blocked with wax, put in a suction thingy and pull the space alien out of my ear canal. Instead, he looked into my ear, said it was clean and promptly sent me to the audiologist (in the same building) so I could have a hearing test and they could test the pressure on my ear. After spending almost $400.00 for the visit, I expected magic. What I got was a hurry up and wait diagnosis. The ear is full of fluid from the infection, (the infection is probably gone) and it may take a couple of weeks to clear up. A couple of weeks.
Jorma’s right that its better just because I know there isn’t a huge tumor pressing on the ear canal and the fluid in the ear diagnosis is a good problem to have, if I have to have a problem with my ear at all. The problem is that the fluid is still putting pressure on the ear drum, which means I can’t hear and I’m in pain still. And I’m dizzy.
The Dr. didn’t put me back on steroids, mainly because of the uncontrollable crying that was going on in his office. Apparently with some people, steroids cause hormonal type mood swings, (think CRAZY INTENSE PMS - think first trimester pregnancy) and I am one of those people. He said that it would take longer but he didn’t think I should go back onto the steroids. He did not use the term “bat shit crazy” although I’m quite certain he was thinking it.
Yesterday I went to the Chiropractor, hoping that he could provide a little bit of relief by straightening out my jaw which was killing me and possibly cleaning the path for ear to drain. I mean, after you’ve spent $400.00 on an ear dr. what’s another $40.00, right? The Chiro did tell me that I might start feeling some drainage an hour or so after my adjustment. I did, but it was all in the sinuses… I didn’t even realize I HAD anything left in my sinuses. But the ear didn’t drain. So. Still in pain. Still can’t hear.  
I guess that means I’m going to have to work on speeding up the healing myself. You know, onion poultices, and garlic oil in the ear. Vampires beware.

No good deed goes unpunished

I first have to take a minute to brag about the auction that we put on for one of the Moms in my MOMS Club who is fighting breast cancer. I’ve been absorbed in auction details, spending most of my preschool free time, collecting donations and organizing the event. The auction was held last Saturday and we raised over $4600.00 for our friend. It was a lot of work but now that it’s over, I couldn’t be prouder, (or happier to have my life back!). We had 18 volunteers from the club, women that selflessly gave up time and money and things to help in any way they could. I’ve never been so impressed by a group of women. I’m going to get them all to run for Congress next election.

I was so busy running around and worrying about the auction, during the auction that I lost out on several good deals. Things that I really wanted to purchase, but didn’t get a chance to. Well, I was worrying, blowing my nose and trying not to breathe on anyone, because the day of the auction. I had the flu.
I told Jorma two months ago that the day of the auction I would have the flu. I said this because of my experience with May Race at the track which I worked for several years in a row with the flu each time. It’s just the way it works for me.

The night after the auction, I was exhausted. I was too sick to really be happy about my (our) accomplishment and all I wanted to do was sleep. This ensured that I stayed up all night with my left ear which started throbbing about 10pm. By morning I was damn near hysterical from lack of sleep and pain and Jorma took me into the Urgent Care where I was diagnosed with Swimmers Ear, Inner Ear Infection, Flu and Pink Eye. Because I don’t do anything half-assed.

It’s been a week now and the ear is still not back to normal. I called the Dr. on Tuesday and was prescribed a stronger antibiotic and a steroid. The antibiotic caused Oral Thrush which I had last time I was sick and Thursday I was medicated for that as well. The steroids are making me a little bit loopy and I can’t say I like that at all. The bonus of 10 lbs of water weight and extreme nervousness isn’t helping me either. But worse of all, I can barely hear out of my left ear. I have an appointment with an ENT on Monday. This is scaring me for several reasons, not the least of which is that I can’t keep up with the children because I watch them with my ears as much with my eyes. I never realized this until I started suffering from this, how I know what they are up to by each little sound I hear. The other morning I let Tristan go downstairs before Connor and I but wasn’t able to hear him open the freezer and get out the ice cream. When we came downstairs five minutes later he was sitting on the floor of the kitchen with a half gallon of ice cream and a spoon munching away. Connor immediately shrieked, “WHY DOES TRISTAN GET ICE CREAM FOR BREAKFAST?!” and it was on.
You’d think that I’d appreciate the lack of hearing just a little bit because it would block out some of the noise from the kids. The problem is because the hearing that I have is so robotic that when the kids get loud and shrill, it actually starts hurting my ears. And it’s loud a lot around here.
So add the kids’ noise causing me pain, to not being able to taste from the oral thrush, not being able to sleep and the mood swings from the steroids, to the ten lbs of water weight, the balance problems and giving up cheese for lent… well… it’s just happy happy around here. I’ll post my ENT results on Monday. Wish me luck.

FW: Your blog.....

Because I knew that giving up cheese would be shocking to some… Here's a peek from my Inbox:

From: Pattie
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 5:30 PM
To: Janice
Subject: Your blog.....

YOU GAVE UP CHEESE?????!!!!!! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME????!!!!! THE ORIGINAL MISS I NEED A CHEESE PATCH GAVE UP CHEESE???!!!!

ALRIGHT, JUST WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH JANICE???????

Dear Connor - 4 Years, 4 Months

Dear Connor,
Better late than never with your letter this month. Between cleaning up after you and your brother and managing this silent auction, I've been quiet busy. One of the girls that's in my MOMS Club has breast cancer and we've been putting together an auction to help her with the medical bills. Before I had children I would have been sympathetic, but now after having children I realize that all children are my children. All the children that are starving, lonely or hurting are my children. All of the children whose Mommy's are sick are my children. Because I can look at you and your brother and see how fortunate we are. Because I can look at your and your brother and see how fickle fortune can be and if something ever happened to me or your Dad, I would want someone to help you and your brother the same way. Because I look at those children and think, what if they were mine. You and your brother have changed my life in more ways than sleep deprevation and extra loads of laundry. You've made this world, our world. And I want to help change it for you.

But oh, let's move on to happier things... like how much you torture the cat and how he loves you so. Maybe somewhere in his little cat brain, he knew he was in a shelter. And he feels like any love is good love, even if it means that he's carried around from room to room in the house and plopped down on the floor, so that you can fall on the floor next to him and pet him. You tell him about your swimming lessons and how your day at school went. You tell him about your monsters at night and assure him you will protect him from them. In the morning when you wake up, he materializes out of thin air waiting to undergo the morning routine of playing fetch with his mouse.

Oh! I remember what I was going to write. Your memory is coming online. You are suddenly remembering things from last summer, like the frosted animal crackers that I packed into our beach bag. They completely melted and you and your brother ate them anyway. Apparently that was quite memorable for you because the other day you said, "MOMMY! I REMEMBER SOMETHING IN MY BRAIN!" and reminded me about those animal crackers. That means that you might be storing away some memories from your childhood that you will be able to recall in the next few years. Maybe you'll remember how yesterday when I was outside raking leaves, you came running up to me to tell me that you had broken the toliet seat.

When I ran to the bathroom, I was glad you had broken the toliet seat, because it made me hurry into the bathroom and see that you had also shoved a watering can underneath the sink faucet, left it running and then forgotten about it in your haste to tell me about the toliet seat. The watering can had filled and because the spout was hanging out of the sink over the counter, maybe you'll remember the water pouring out of the spout onto the countertop and down the cabinets. Maybe you'll remember the look on Mommy's face when she saw the countertop, the broken toliet seat and the trival fact that the toliet was so full of poop and paper that it needed to be plunged.
Although it's more likely, you'll remember that you went to the bathroom and then Mommy came in and started yelling at you. I'm sure your therapist will tell you it wasn't your fault at all.
I love you,
Mommy

A Fast Decision

I’ve given up all sorts of stuff for Lent. Alcohol, chocolate, soft drinks, fast food and one year I even gave up sex. Giving up sex was relatively easy since I was single and not seeing anyone, but let me tell you… if you are single and looking, give up sex for lent and see what happens. Suddenly men will start crawling out of the woodwork. Give up chocolate and you’ll be faced with a Speedway buffet of nothing but delicious chocolate delicacies. Give up fast food and find that you have to starve until you get home to make a sandwich.
There’s no need to remind me that I’m not Catholic, but I really like the idea of sacrifice for spirituality. And if I’m going to give something up, what better time than when everyone else is doing it too? You know, just to be part of the “in crowd”, (since I’m so into that sort of thing).
This year I debated what the sacrifice should be. I considered sugar, which is in everything. I thought about high fructose corn syrup. I thought about fast food. But in the end, I settled on giving up cheese. You read that right. Cheese. Even Jorma, doubted my ability to stop with the cheese lovin’, since he lives with me and knows it’s my main staple. In fact, I think he might have used the words, “No. Way.” Is that a challenge?
So far it’s been over a week and I’m doing quite well. It does make me stop and think before I put anything into my mouth because I have to take that momentary pause to ask myself if it has cheese in it. I also didn’t realize how often I grab a pinch of cheese while cooking dinner and pop it into my mouth or how often I finish the pimento cheese sandwich that the kids didn’t eat. It’s a reflex that’s probably costing me a whole lot of calories each day, not to mention the fat grams. I have discovered though, that there are foods that I’ve never eaten without cheese. Turkey Reuben, Turkey Sandwich, Pasta Primavera, Spaghetti. All taste pretty good with out the cheese. I was disappointed to find that the croutons I usually put on our salads have cheese in them and had to pick them off and move them to the kids’ plates. And do you know? That cheese-free salad wasn’t bad at all.
All I know is I can’t wait until after Easter. There is fondue waiting for me.

Almost Famous

Recently, I was contacted by wefeelfine.org about having an blurb from my blog and a picture of Tristan published in a book that's been put together by the creators of the site. The site gathers emotions that have been written with the words,"I feel" randomly from the web and puts them into an applet that allows you to click and see what people in the world are feeling at that present moment. It's a neat idea and I'm glad to be a part of it. My blurb will appear in the section on mothers who blog. The quote is,"I feel our baby days slipping away". You may remember the picture from this post. It's the image at the very bottom with the tractor in the background. Not the best shot, right? They wouldn't allow me to send a better one from the same age.
Although I've requested a plug for my site, they aren't publishing that information, instead they will just publish my name and give me credit as writer and photographer. And just like that. Almost famous.

All Hail the Dustbuster

It's 3:15 pm on Thursday and I hear Tristan calling me, the way he does when he wakes up from his nap. It's been quiet upstairs so I know he's been sleeping. I mean, what else could he be doing for that long and be that quiet? I open the door to his room and am hit by the pungent smell of fresh baby bottoms. I flip on the light and see that Tristan is not in his crib. As I turn to look on top of the changing table, Tristan holds his arms out to me and says, "TADA!". I wish the pictures showed the light coating of all of the baby powder on everything in the room. I wish they showed you the smell. I wish they showed you how I just went completely numb and said, "Don't move", as I walked to our room to get the camera, the call to poison control, or the 45 minutes it took to clean it all up. But mostly I wish they showed you how pleased Tristan was for the hour that he was partying in his room instead of napping. All hail the dustbuster. And the Swiffer wet jet, the vacuum and half a container of baby wipes.