Thursday, August 30, 2012

Sinus infection? No thanks. Oh, wait, I have one anyway? Great.

It has to be a cosmic payback for publishing the post on the spider in the ear.  Right? 

Last week after sniggering over all the comments on Facebook about people being afraid to sleep at night because a spider might have climbed in their ear as they slept, I realized I myself had an itchy ear.

As stated on Facebook, I really did rinse my ears out with peroxide, effectively killing anything that might have been in there (hopefully) and succeeded in making myself so dizzy I almost fell over in the bathroom.

I missed work last week on Tuesday because I felt so crappy; dizzy, flushed, really headachy...you get the picture.  Since then the pressure in my ears has increased, making it sound like I constantly have a crackling faulty speaker in my head.  And it HURTS.  Like someone took a baseball bat and cracked me in the face.  Not here, or here so much...but right here.


not here, or here so much...but right here.
 Last night, went home and was in bed by 5:30 for a 1.5 hour nap...then back in bed at 9:30pm, still not feeling well.

I dragged myself into work even though I felt icky, flushed, feverish; thinking I could gut it out.  Around 11am I cried "uncle" and made an appointment with the doctor for 3:30 pm.  Which was more like 3:45 pm.

She peeked in my right ear, very routinely.  However, she took an uncomfortably long time looking in my left ear, the source of most of the crackling.  So long, in fact, that I found myself wondering what in the heck could be that *cough spider cough* interesting in there.  I found myself spiderbabbling.

She stepped back, tiny hand on tiny chin.*

"Do you have a pet?"

It's a spider it's a spider it's a spider it's a spider it's a spider

"Yes, why?" (It's a good thing she took my blood pressure before this line of questioning.)

"Is your pet as black as your shirt?"

OMGOMGOMGOMG it's a BLACK spider

I try to appear relatively calm as I tell her we have a black lab who as recently as last night (and every night, as a matter of fact) sleeps on the pillows of our bed.

"Puh" and "puhppy"

"You have a black dog hair in your ear."

"Get it out." I command.  Just in case it's a spider imitating a dog hair, or perhaps she can only see one of its legs.

"It will come out by itself.  No Q-tips.  No ear plugs."  Does she not know Q tips are a necessity of mine?  And that from time to time my husband, maybe, possibly snores (lightly, mind you, sort of a "puh" exhale) and that if I don't have earplugs in, I will hear every single "PUH"?

In her musical voice, she says, "perhaps the ear plugs may have had a dog hair on them when you placed them in your ear."  Oh, yuck.  Note to self:  throw away all ear plugs.  Because I don't place them in my ear, I JAM those suckers in.

Long story short, she checked me out thoroughly, told me I had a fever (I KNEW I WAS SICK) and a sinus infection and put me on antibiotics.  For those of you who don't know, Schnuk's pharmacies fill a lot of antibiotics for free, regardless of insurance.  Lovely pharmacy.

They also have Q tips and ear plugs.

*I LOVE my doctor.  She is awesome. 

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

What? I can't hear you; there's a spider in my ear

Years ago, it was a popular myth that the average person swallows eight spiders in their lifetime, all while sleeping.

Eight. Spiders.

freedigitalphotos.net
Although, I'd like to think you'd wake up before swallowing this.

After poking around on the internet for a while, where every single thing you read is true, I ran across the snopes website where it debunks that theory.  In fact, most of the information that I read said that it is very unlikely, nay, HIGHLY unlikely, that you would ever swallow a spider while asleep. 

Sweet dreams.  Or not? 

Just because you may not swallow one doesn’t mean one couldn’t crawl in your ear and take up residence there, thinking it a wonderful, dark, comfortable cave that he and he alone discovered. 

This actually happened, and it probably wasn’t the first time this happened to someone.

A few days ago I ran across this very story complete with a picture of the offending spider peeking out of a woman’s ear canal.  This woman in China went to the doctor after having an itch in her ear for five days.  The doctor who treated her was probably delirious with happiness.  After looking into thousands of ears, this finally wasn’t a routine ear infection…something COOL was actually in there!  Luckily (for us) they were able to grab the camera and take a picture of the gentle little creature, who was just minding his own business, thank you very much.

I will never sleep again.

Recently I was in our bathroom at home when I felt a tickle on my thigh.  I thought it was a stray hair and idly brushed it away.  A few seconds later, I felt that same tickle and when I looked down, there was a wicked looking black spider ON MY LEG.  Probably waiting to see if I needed a new roll of tissue paper. 

True fact:  if a spider is going to scare the crap out of you, the bathroom is the place to be.

Outside our house, however, is up for grabs, spider wise.  We have spiders near our house in the bushes that make a cool, tunneled web.  When I see these, I think of when I was lots younger and my brother and I would make an afternoon of good times out of finding ants and throwing them into the lucky spider’s web.  You’re welcome, Mr. Spider! 

At my office, we get daddy longlegs, which I carefully coach into climbing onto a pad of paper and then throw them outside where they will live to grow even longer legs.  Recently, our IT guy saved all of us from certain death when he killed a huge, hideous spider, after declaring… you know what…this spider looks like a biter.  He was probably right.

I’m sure spiders serve some purpose, killing other bugs and whatnot, but I only like to run into them around Halloween.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

A bitter rivalry

Sometimes, I just let them fight it out.  It's interesting to note, however, that the one that is yellow and green (which, coincidentally is the Packer color scheme) ends up on the floor most mornings.

Odd.

the Bears potholder like to be in front, too.