I’ll tell ya what, guys, it’s not fun!

So, um, I got this super nasty ear infection, like, three weeks ago. And, I know I’m a little prone to ear infections because I have small ears and small ear canals and small… well, everything, but this was bad. Like, I started to get a tiny ear ache one Sunday night… and then, three days later, it was shooting pains all through my brain so bad I literally could not eat, sleep, or do anything besides bite my own tongue. I have never suffered an ear ache this bad in my entire life… maybe not even any type of ache this bad. I had to take Tylenol ’round the clock, stuff my ear into a hot pad, and even that was not enough (and, seriously, it normally doesn’t take much Tylenol or much of anything to numb me up).

(FYI, one of my all-time favorite quotes right there. ^^^)

Now, you may or may not have realized that I’ve been using the past tense with this story thus far. That’s because, yes, eventually… I found pain relief. But that was an even longer journey.

I had to get antibiotics from a nurse practitioner at a nearby clinic, and the infection that had been festering in my right ear did start to clear up after another four/five days… but then, of course, the pain left one ear and returned to the other. With a vengeance.

(What even is this? ^)

My right ear still ached, but the left one became so much worse in comparison… now, absolutely nothing would even take away a fraction of the stabbing. There was just so much pressure in there, like 25 PSI. This was on the next Sunday night, too, right when I was starting to be able to eat again, and getting used to it. I also had gotten a few decent nights of sleep before that… which was good, because the peak of the pain was that night, and I couldn’t sleep at all. I literally just curled up on my hot pad and watched SNL YouTube videos for the full eight hours of sleep I had planned for.

So then, the next morning, of course, my ear started draining this super nasty, green fluid. And then blood, lots of it.

Sorry if you didn’t want to hear that, but if you can hear anything, then you must have beautifully healthy ears and you need to use them to their full potential every chance you get.

So anyway, my ear still hurt really, really bad, but the draining lightened it up just a little. But then, of course, everyone else was all like, “Oh gosh, you’re, like, hemorrhaging from your ear, you need to go to a doctor!” So, I went to another clinic, to another doctor. And then, he looked in my ear, and then he was like, “Well, it seems to me that you’ve got a little spontaneously ruptured ear drum with an infection going on in there!”

Now, yes, a spontaneously ruptured ear drum sounds life-threatening or something, or so I figured at first, too, but it’s actually pretty natural and heals up on its own. Or, at least, it’s supposed to…

So, here I am, almost another week later… with this hopefully healing spontaneously ruptured ear drum.

Now, what is it like constantly knowing there is a tiny little hole leading directly from the outside world to the inside of my brain where there shouldn’t be? It’s really weird… and kind of great, actually. Like, I read this thing on this sketchy medical website that if you have a ruptured/punctured ear drum, you can plug your nose and blow and air will come out of your ears. Admittedly, I tried this… but on accident. Because, of course, you’re not really supposed to blow your nose with a punctured ear drum, because that can just rip it more, and, of course, day one of knowing this, I forgot, I blew my nose after getting water up in it in the shower, and I seriously thought I had blown my whole ear drum out for a moment. It didn’t hurt, but it sounded so strange… like, I could hear the neighbor’s flipping a pancake for one second, and then it went back to the way it was again, where I couldn’t hear a gosh darned thing. It doesn’t make sense, but I swear that’s what happened.

Also, I can’t get literally anything in my ear, so I have to keep ripped up cotton balls in it 24/7. I’m not sure exactly what would happen if I got water in it, but I assume it’ll be something along the lines of actual brain freeze.

Not even air can get in there. Otherwise, it gets really cold, really fast. And it tickles.

But, anyway, this has been a lengthy summary of my experience with my spontaneously ruptured/punctured ear drum. Like I said, it hasn’t been fun, and I’m not really even sure yet if it is/will heal… but, it doesn’t hurt like it did however many days ago,

I’ve never broken a bone, and I’ve never pulled a muscle. I have, however, ripped an eye, and now an eardrum. Life is weird.

-iKari👂