Aliens vs Midgets

Little bit of drama in the Martin household the week of April 10th. It started like this:

Sunday the 10th:
I have a little earache. Very curious – I don’t recall ever having an earache ever in my life.

Monday the 11th:
I wake up and my ear still hurts but it’s an ear ache – I can handle it. Midday my boss is annoyed telling me it is an ear infection and to go to the doctor. By 3:30 I can’t handle it and go to the doctor. He says – “yes it is an ear infection caused by a viral upper respiratory infection. Nothing to do but manage the pain since it is a virus.” He prescribes some hydrocodone and sends me on my way.

Tuesday the 12th:
Not great. I am chaperoning Z’s field trip to Safety Town (way cool place by the way!!). The hydrocodone doesn’t seem to work so I take ibuprofen on top of it. I some how survive the 2 hr field trip and head home instead of work. The pain has intensified to something I can’t even explain. All I keep thinking is – don’t babies get ear infections all the time? Am I such a wimp that I can’t handle what a baby can??? Get home take more hydrocodone and within 20 mins I start vomiting. YAY. So Tuesday afternoon is more than hell for me – my ear hurts so bad nothing will help – not laying down, not standing up, not sitting down, not being still, not moving around and I am still throwing up. I believe I actually got delirious from the pain.

I throw in the towel about 7pm and make Chad take me to the ER. He packs up the kids and me and off we go – if being at home hurt – the car ride was the hell express – every bump, turn, sound – agonizing. We get to the hospital and I am so close to relief that it feels like hours before they see me. At some point LuLu and Damon pick the kids up (in all seriousness – Leigh Anne I have no words to truly express how grateful I am that you came without a pause. THANK YOU – I love you!!)

The PA comes in asks what the problem is and then looks in my ear – he then tugs and says does this hurt and pokes and says does this hurt – is he kidding????? I am in my freakin pajamas, smelling like vomit, weeping from the pain – YES it hurts – quit touching my ear! He then asks “when did the fever start?” I can only imagine the look I gave him at that point. I say “I have a fever?” He said it was 101 and when did it start. I don’t think I cussed at him out loud but in mind I screamed “My head is going to explode – I have spent the last 8 hours vomiting – you really think I stopped to take my F’n temperature??????”

Blah blah blah…so the nurse gives me an IV (after only two attempts which is impressive since I was so dehydrated) and gives me some Demerol. OOoooohh I like me some Demerol. Seriously within seconds my ear pain was gone and I just wanted to sleep. So I got an IV of antibiotics because the ER doc says I have swimmer’s ear (really???) and a middle ear infection and it is bacterial not viral and about an hour later another shot of the Demerol. I am sent home.

Wednesday the 13th:
We get home about 1:30 am with new drugs and my ear is now leaking fluid. Yes gross. I take the medicine and do not awake (other than for potty and medication breaks) until 4:00 pm Thursday.

Thursday the 14th:
My ear is still literally dripping yellow grossness but I feel so much better that I tell God I will walk around for the rest of my life with a cotton ball in my ear to catch the goo if I do not ever have to feel like that again.

Friday the 15th:
Go to work – still dripping but feeling OK. Go to the ENT for a follow up and he looks in and says oh you busted your ear drum – that is why you are leaking. He said that it would close up soon and all will be sunshine and rainbows. And the leaking did stop on Monday the 18th.

So I tell you this VERRRRRY long story for two reasons:
1. To justify why I haven’t blogged in a while
2.Because the IV left an almost perfectly 2” x 2” square bruise on the middle of my forearm which is the REAL introduction to this blog.

The WEIRDEST stuff happens to aboynamedstu. I refer to Stuart a lot in this blog for many reasons, one of which is I admire his style and blog, and another is because the craziest things happen in his life. He recently had a post that involved a cashier calling his friend a very inappropriate name and the situation that followed still makes me shake my head. (please read it if you get the chance Boyz in the Hood ) If I didn’t know better, I would say he makes it up but the best part of it all is that he doesn’t!!!!

Anyway, the post lead me to comment to Stuart that he really has the funniest/bizarre/craziest stuff happen in his world. He responded saying that crazy stuff happens to all of us but he just knows how to mine it and retell it. Which I will agree with him but only to a point.

I questioned myself - do I keep my head down and miss the funniest/bizarre/craziest that happens around me? Do I just need to pay attention more to my surroundings and I’ll see how it happens to me too? Do I just need to shop in Richardson?

So I did a little experiment. This bruise on my arm really is odd. It is seriously almost a perfect square. I start creating stories in my head of what weird event could have caused this bruise. I want to make it completely outlandish. I started going down the alien route – I had been abducted by aliens and I fought against them so much they had to use a weird restraint and it left a bruise. But I couldn’t get the story to flow.

Friday morning at work, I was refilling my water bottle when CoWorker A came in, saw the bruise, and asked what happened. I was so excited here was my chance – I looked down at the bruise and started “Well, as you know on Wed nights I referee midget wrestling…” when CoWorker B (who knew the truth) came in, saw me pointing to my bruise, and said “isn’t that the weirdest bruise – maybe it was the IV tape? You could be allergic” and blew my story. CoWorker A was briefly confused and then said oh the ear thing, etc.

I was disappointed. For the rest of the weekend, I was as obvious about the bruise as I could be. I made sure every cashier saw it and every parent at the soccer game saw it and no one asked about it.

I received opportunity number 2 on Monday. We were having issues with our ID cards and the security system so I was stuck briefly on an elevator with CoWorker C. She said “OMG – what on earth happened to your arm??” With a straight face I said, “I was refereeing midget wrestling this weekend, I do it to make some extra cash, and one of the midgets got out of control and accidentally took me down and stepped on me with his boot heel. It was wild.”

She did nothing. Not a smile or laugh, not a “are you crazy?” look, not even a “you don’t have to be a rude because I asked bitch!” look. The elevators opened and she started with “this is so weird that our cards don’t work – should we go to security?”

I told Chad about it that night. He thought it was funny that I actually told the story and even more hilarious that I would use the un-pc word midget rather than little person (little person wrestling doesn’t sound right) and he figures CoWorker C thinks I am rude.

My point is this:

I truly believe that had this scenario been played out in Stuart’s life that he would have gotten some reaction out of someone. I realize that it can even be awkward to ask someone about a random bruise especially if you don’t know them but I bet if Stuart had it – 30 people would have asked him “WTH?”

I am saddened that my little non-scientific experiment didn’t yield the results I had hoped to. Oh well. I will just keep reading Stuart’s blog and enjoying the entertainment that is his life.

You know though, my bruise is still kind of visible – maybe I just need to head to Richardson and do a little shopping with my arm up!