So, sometimes weird things happen, right? Unexpected things, gross things. We all try to avoid them, but they happen. Let me explain. We spent the last five days in Virginia. I will post about the trip later, but one of the highlights of the trip was staying at the Great Wolf Lodge, which is a hotel that has an indoor water park that could rival any water park. We were having a great time, when all of a sudden, Michael snags his toe nail and it is completely severed from his toe. Painful, yes, gross, extremely. For the last several days I have been in charge of cleaning it and caring for it. It is disgusting, but hey, I help where I can, and frankly, I am not the one missing a toe nail, so I am dealing with it.
Yesterday we begin to drive home. It is 600 miles and took us about 10 hours or more with stops. All day, Michael kept telling me his ear was hurting. He took Sudafed to relieve the congestion, he popped Advil every six hours. We survived the journey, returned home, unpacked and went to bed. About four in the morning it hit him. Michael was writhing in pain. More Advil was taken, but it was doing nothing. Hours go by. We do not have a doctor in NY, most are not accepting new patients, most won't see a new patient for three to four months, so we turn to Immediate Care, aka, Insta Care in Utah. He goes in, he is diagnosed, it is severe otitis externa, or as we lay people call it, Swimmer's Ear. I have only seen him in pain like this once before, but throw the hurt toe, that he happened to stub last night, into the equation and it might rival the first incident.
My husband is truly miserable at this moment. It is sad and a little unnerving, but what is driving me crazy is that I cannot make the pain go away. Apparently, it is pretty bad. The doctor offered to write him an Rx for a pain killer, Michael refused. Several hours later, we both regret that decision. Let's face it people, if your doctor thinks that you are so miserable that they offer you narcotics, don't refuse the offer! Take the prescription, fill it if necessary, but at least take them up on the offer. If I thought changing band-aids on toes was gross, try seeing puss leaking out of an ear canal! You know what, overall, August has been a really crappy month, that is why you have not had posts from us. There were a few brilliant moments, but mostly, I am excited that I stayed up to midnight and that it is now September. It has to get better than this, right?
Part 2- Tuesday morning Michael could no longer handle the pain. He returned to the immediate care and asked to be re-evaluated. They prescribed Tylenol with codeine and he got it filled and it helped for a few hours, but then the pain was more severe. Then the left side of his face began to swell and the pain intensified some more. By Tuesday night he was miserable. We called our Bishop around 11:15 pm and asked for help. He came over and gave Michael a blessing and told us how to get to the closest ER. Around 1:00 am he couldn't take it any more and drove to the ER. They said the antibiotics he had been taking were not doing anything and the infection was getting worse. His face was swollen due to swelling of lymph nodes. He got a stronger anitbiotic, stronger ear drops that numb the ear when placed and is still taking the pain killer. This is his third day off of work, the same amount of time that I begged him to take to go to Hawaii last year! He never misses work, and counting the time he took off to go to VA last week, this is his sixth day out of the office, yet he would much rather be there. Today he says that he has never experienced pain this extreme. Who knew that swimmer's ear would be so disastrous for him? Any guesses as to how much an ER visit in New York will be? At this point, I don't even want to know.
Barely surviving in New York,
Jennifer
P.S. At this point, I am really, really missing my great Kaysville neighbors and our family members.
