I've been prone to ear infections for many a year and I know I've been complaining about this particular bout for a while now, but I never expected to be put so out of action by one. I feel drained and I look flushed. I'm probably going to need some oral antibiotics to shake this thing off (which whill no doubt have their own lovely side effects). Absoloutely hate being ill like this.
Normally, ear infections aren't particularly nice, but we've all had them at one time or another, get over it. A little ear spray and on your way. Except this time, the swelling around my ears and into my throat and the resulting effects on my ability to open and close my jaw properly, ability to speak, to lie down to sleep (I cannot sleep on my back), to eat, even just to hold the phone up to my face causes pain like fire to radiate through my ears and accross my face, into my cheeks and jaw and neck. It's as if I've caught mumps again only the centre of the pain has been moved back from just behind my cheeks into my ears. The pain is the same, the actions that exaccerbate the pain are the same.
The comparrison between this and mumps however leads me into a little amusing tale for those who do not know me so well.
That is a picture of me and the lovely Becky and Dee when I was down with mumps. I look like a Mrs Peter Griffin. Or, as my parents so amusedly told me when I sent them the pictures, it's more Mrs Jabba the Hut.
I know what you're probably thinking, and any sane person would. If she has mumps, why the hell is she out drinking champagne (and any and all other manner of intoxicating substances) and getting generally sozzled? Shouldn't she be in bed resting up and getting better?
Well in answer to your second question, yes, yes I should have been doing just that. In answer to your first...
It was my hen party.
We'd been planning it for a few months and it was exactly four weeks before my wedding. My maid of honour, Laila, had travelled to Liverpool for the occasion, and people had been making a lovely effort to get things set straight for me.
I knew I was ill, but it came upon me so fast! On the Thursday before the party, I came down with a nasty sore throat and thought well great, this is gonna wreck things up. On the Friday, I noticed two massive lumps in my jaw, and two in my face just behind my cheeks. On the Saturday, said lumps had swollen to Bullfrog sized proportions...and that was the night of my hen do. The speed at which it went from being a sore throat to swollen glands to...well...THAT! It was quite frightening.
I didn't even think it was mumps. My mum is a nurse and she made sure by hell or high water that despite the autism controversy surrounding the MMR jab that me and my siblings were all innoculated with it. Of course though, these things are never 100% effective (I was one of the unlucky 1% or something daft like that) but the chances just ruled it out for me in my mind despite all of the classic symptoms.
The party was supposed to be started at my friends place, followed by a pub crawl of, naturally, epic proportions. Never happened though. We went to the first pub and I was absoloutely shot so we stayed for a few drinks then went back to base camp as it were. We still had a relatively awesome time though, even if I was the first to give in and say you know what...I need to go home and sleep now!
The next day I was in hospital because the pain was just so bad and my throat was closing up at a frightening rate. The doctor prescribed me some powerful antibiotics and signed me off work for the week. I spent that week taking every painkiller I could get my hands on and living on a mostly liquid diet. The antibiotics, naturally since mumps is viral, didn't touch the damn thing and a week later I was back at the doctors begging for something to help. That's when I finally got diagnosed with mumps. My face by this point was even worse than the lovely picture above.
I was really worried, it was three weeks before my wedding at this point and I was frantic...being a big girl anyway I've always been a little self concious about the puffyness of my face and this made me look even worse than I already was. Still, by this point I was beginning to recover (even if it didn't feel much like it) and the doctor, bless her, could do nothing but give me some stronger painkillers to help me through the last few days of it. The swelling in my face eventually went down and I was left with some irritating flu like symptoms which, blessedly, decided to leave me be by the time the big day came around.
I know you've all seen this picture before but I think when you compare it to the one above, it's amazing that they were only taken a month apart. I can tell you now for certain that it wasn't down to any magical weight loss...after I recovered, I put weight on since I was finally able to actually eat proper food again!
But yes indeed...that time with mumps was probably the most ill I have ever felt and this is edging up on it in the pain factor. Thankfully the timing isn't so bad this time round...I mean it's my birthday in a couple of weeks but I should hope that by then it's resolved itself. Until then, I'm slurping down the soup and I hope to the powers that be that in a couple of hours the doc can give me something that works to kill whatever it is that's living in my ears and causing so much pain!
Wow that sounds terrible! I have never even met anyone who has had the mumps. I'm glad you were able to de-swell before your wedding!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind and encouraging words on my blog today. :)