Jonny Wix & The Ear Explosions

A couple of years ago, my friend Jonny Wicks told me the following story (I'm sure the facts aren't exactly right, but here's how I remember it):

He was in a hotel with his wife in Cincinnati while they were scouting colleges. He said his ear started hurting incredibly bad and there was nothing he could do to ease the pain. Because he didn't have health insurance, he decided to just tough it out.

The only thing that made him feel better was standing in a hot shower, so he basically spent the whole night under the water. And that's when he heard the pop. He said a small piece of skin shot out of his eardrum, releasing all of the pressure in his ear as well as a steady stream of blood. He finally gave in and he and his wife headed to the emergency room.

I've had a cold for the past week. It started as a nasty sore throat, moved on to sinus congestion and, two days ago, moved into my ear. Because I didn't want to pay my doctor $75 to tell me that it would go away on its own, I tried to just ignore it.

By Monday night, it was hurting me so bad that I figured I had to go to the doctor. So around midnight, I decided to go to InstaCare. I looked up the phone number online and saw that they closed at 10 p.m. (Which I should have known, since I am the one who maintains the InstaCare info on SelectHealth's website. Duh.) So I looked for other options. I couldn't find anything that was still open. Traci recommended going to the nighttime place she had taken Paige last year, but couldn't remember the name. So at 12:45 a.m. I got in my car and drove to Murray - only to find that the place had closed. I came back home, couldn't sleep, and watched Prison Break and The Royal Tenenbaums. I fell asleep around 4 a.m.

I went to the doctor in the next morning - the ExpressCare in the Smiths. The pregnant, Asian nurse didn't speak great English, but she was very nice. The examination went along just fine, until she looked in my ear. "This is very, very bad. Your eardrum not supposed to look like that. Almost ruptured." She told me the thing was going to explode at any moment. She warned me not to blow my nose and certainly not to take a shower. Thoughts of Wicks went reeling through my mind.

So I've been taking my antibiotics and I still feel like crap. Two of my three sisters have told me their horror stories of the earache that would never go away, but I am crossing my fingers that I feel better by tomorrow - and that my ear doesn't blow up.