Saturday, January 2nd, 2010 was supposed to be a great day. I was going to get up, go "running" (aka: elliptical since my foot is still unfunctional) and then it was time to just enjoy the weekend. It didn't really go like that. I mean sort of, it just didn't start off in the way that I had imagined. And really, in the grand scheme, the day wasn't THAT bad, I'll be realistic.
BUT.
When I got out of bed at 7am to a throbbing right side of my head, only to look in the mirror and see my ear swollen OVER my new piercing and bright red, which in turn made me feel slightly ill and grasp the sink so that I wouldn't keel over (as an aside: I HATE when things on me look bad or weird)?
Well, I freaked out.
FAH-REAKED.
Due to the immense size of my ear, the fact I couldn't even SEE the piercing remotely (I actually thought it had fallen out during the middle of the night and spent 10 minutes looking for it in bed only to determine there was no way the back was still attached if nothing was on the front), the GIANT redness of the "bump" and the fact that it was bleeding (GROSS!), I immediately went to my friend google.
I've said it before and will say it again: I HATE GOOGLE IN CASES LIKE THIS. Of course google directed me to sites that told me I was going to die if I didn't remove the jewelry rightthissecond (um, hello?! Not possible when my SKIN is COVERING the jewelry and there is no way to do that unless I pull it OUT the other end...um OWWWWW!) But other more tame options were: soaking in hot salt water, ice for inflammation, antibiotics for the infection.
Well.
Let me just say: I obviously KNEW it was infected. I knew I needed antibiotics. And I knew going into getting this piercing that the likelihood for infection for this piercing was about 90% (it's a tricky spot because there is no blood flow in the tragus and it's prone to infections). BUT I'd been soaking it every day in hot salt water since getting it pierced to prevent what I knew could likely happen. I'd done so good at preventing even any swelling!
Until last week.
It had been a few weeks, I wanted to listen to my freaking ipod at the gym. Luckily I only stuck an earphone into ONE ear (coincidentally the right one)... and THAT, my friends, is how to win yourself infection of the year. On January 2, 2010.
So, I go soak in hot salt water, I put ice on it to get the swelling down and I call Tim a million times, texted him telling him PROBLEM. CALL ASAP. COME HELP ME. As soon as he did, I told him my little situation (at this point I was fairly calm thinking that I'd just soak it all day and it would be fine).
Fast forward to 45 minutes later when he gets home. First words out of his mouth, "Holy shit Jenn, we are going to urgent care ASAP. That looks HORRIBLE."At which point I started uncontrollably bawling for 30 minutes. Because HELLO. Nothing like someone else freaking out to really scare the shit out of you (and, not to mention a PARAMEDIC who sees people who I would assume are much worse off everyday!!) Jesus. Not to mention, he had gotten NO sleep the night before and his moods/perceptions of things when he has no sleep? Not good. Can't blame him but it was not a good mix that morning.
I then made myself busy trying to find the front of the earring. I was determined because he told me I would have to pull it out the other end (NOOO!) So I just pushed the hell out of the stupid thing and YES! It popped through (but WOW, that hurt). Once that happened, I knew I had a shot at a) not removing the jewelry and b) saving immense amounts of pain and c) not dying like google said I would.
Tim and I both got calmed down quite a bit after that and he convinced me that my ear wasn't going to fall off and continued to tell me that google was wrong, I wasn't going to get an infection in my brain and die, but I DID still desperately need antibiotics. Since it was Saturday (and since we don't have a primary care doctor- we don't really ever need one except for stuff like this!), we headed down to urgent care.
I HATE URGENT CARE. HATE HATE HATE HATE. (I also hate antibiotics/any other drugs too but oh well. Had no option this time).
The wait always takes FOREVER and I already KNEW what I needed. And there are always a million people there who are flu-sick who SHOULD wear masks but instead sit there and hack all over everyone. Ugh. And the staff there treat you like cows...heard you in, heard you out. So annoying.
So after two hours, I get in. Get my temperature taken, my blood pressure, my oxygen levels. EVEN THOUGH I'M NOT SICK! UGH! Just look at my ear, idiots! But on the plus side, my oxygen level was at 100 (the highest/best possible), my heart rate was great at 60, and my blood pressure was great at 110/70. So, I guess that was good to know.
I finally see the doctor and 5 minutes later I am on my way with a prescription for antibiotics. And now, two days later, my ear is totally fine, a little swollen still but fine. It looks like I'll be able to keep my cute (again) piercing. And I learned my lesson: no headphones. At least for a while. And I am going to research primary care docs in the area, preferably of the naturopathic kind so that I can avoid urgent care AT ALL COSTS going forward.
A picture of the ear when it's NORMAL: non-massive, non-swollen, non-gross. Turns out I was too freaked out Saturday to take a picture of it in all of its swollen, red glory. I should have...it was pretty impressive. Just imagine a huge red ball over the top of the stud. It stuck up probably a half inch and was red all the way around the tragus and onto my face (not kidding).
Luckily, the rest of the weekend was pretty low key. Lots of puppy time at the dog park (which, coincidentally went HORRIBLY saturday...she was in big, big trouble and had several time outs but sunday she was AWESOME), dinners, cuddle time, reading by fires, drinking tea. It was perfect... Although it started a bit shaky, I ended up having a great "last weekend"...the weekend before the unofficial start of busy season.
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