The Ear Infection

Alternate Titles: The Weekend Miss Martha Came to Visit, The Accidental Drug Overdose, OR Why I'm Blogging at 5:00am

Miss Martha

So, this weekend Miss Martha came to town for her monthly visit and we were miserable together for two days. When she comes to town, she almost always brings a miserable attitude accompanied by cramping, bloating and constant whining about something. And this particular visit was no different. So, we stayed in bed for two days (Saturday and Sunday) and let the world pass by. I didn't cook or clean (or blog) and the children mostly watched TV in my room at the foot of my bed as I passed in and out of consciousness.

The Ear Infection

Then came Monday and I slept in late (very late) as the children got up at whatever time they did, I wasn't awake until about 9:30am when I finally decided that I would get up and have a day. Of course, I stayed in bed for about an hour and a half after that just because I felt like it. When I finally decided to get out of bed and have a day my plan was to have a massive cleaning effort throughout the house. That didn't go very far, as I suddenly got the headache from H-E-double-hockey-sticks. It came up fast from nowhere on the right side of my head and taunted me with thoughts of hospitalization, stroke, aneurysm, and the fear of being left on life support in a vegetative state. (Medical Directive to Family: If ever I am hospitalized and have to be on life support with no brain activity or no hope of a meaningful recovery - PLEASE PULL THE PLUG!) I scrambled fast for the ibuprofen which did nothing for me - NOTHING AT ALL. I laid down flat on the sofa, eyes closed tight, moaning and groaning for hours, yelling out not so kind instructions to the children like : No friends allowed in the house or back yard, and whatever you are doing in the kitchen has to STOP NOW! STOP TAPPING ON THE TABLE, ARE YOU TRYING TO TORTURE ME?! I thought it was a migraine - the worst migraine anyone has ever experienced. On a scale of 1-10 it was a 12. Then came the nausea and vomiting. The entire time I was sure that, at some point, my right eye was going to go flying out of my head. There was no sleeping possible in this state of pain. Mostly I was either flat on the sofa or flat in my bed, trying not to cry because that would only make it worse. By 11:00pm I realized that this headache was really from an ear infection. By then my nausea had gone down to a reasonable level and I was able to drive to WalMart (accompanied by son #1) for chicken noodle soup. This was the only thing I could think of that could bring me any comfort. It had to be Campbell's Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup because that is,in my opinion, the saltiest chicken soup on the planet. Well, I had to add salt to get it just right to counteract my nausea, but it worked. Then I was able to take a full dose of NyQuil liquigel (yeah!!!!!!) to knock me out so I could get some sleep and hopefully some relief for the pain. By Tuesday morning I was able to get up and around - functional once again. YEAH!!!!! Now taking DayQuil for the ear infection, three ibuprofen for for Miss Martha, and with Diet Coke in hand I was able to at least do laundry.

The Accidental Drug Overdose

Finally, I made my way back to WalMart, dropped off #1 daughter and the bonus baby with Mammaw in exchange for four ClaritinD's to help dry up my ear infection/congestion. This came, of course, with the warning to be careful not to mix my drugs. I am always careful not to mix inappropriate OTC drugs because I am very sensitive to medication of any kind. So, when I got home I took the ClaritinD, some Afrin 12 hour nasal spray and some Hyland's Homeopathic Earache Drops as soon as I could. The ClaritinD is a 24 hour pill and it always works great for me (although it does tend to keep me awake at night, or sometimes for days at a time). Then at bed time around 11:00pm I took the NyQuil liquigel. (NOTE TO SELF: NEVER TAKE CLARITIN D24 AND NYQUIL WITHIN 12 HOURS OF EACH OTHER.) I had so hoped to drift off to a very deep sleep for at least eight hours or more but NO! Not last night. That is what should have happened if I had only taken the NyQuil. But the side effect of Claritin D is that it keeps me awake with a slight buzz. Mixing the two together threw me into a hazy, leg jerky, quasi waking sleep state from about 1:00am to 5:00am when my eyes popped open and I decided I might as well get out of bed - fully refreshed, of course - to clean the kitchen which I left neglected last night after dinner. So, now the kitchen is sparkling clean and I'm almost through with this blog post, and I have thought of at least three other blog stories for later this week. I also decided on the most exciting gift project which is inspired by something I read in my one of my favorite blogs (The NieNie Dialogues).

So, that is the story of The Weekend Miss Martha Came to Visit, The Ear Infection, The Accidental Drug Overdose and

Why I am blogging at at 5:000AM!