My Annual Illness

I remember last year at Christmas time, I flew to my sister Cathy's house to spend a few days with her for the holidays. Do you recall this post? During that trip, I was ill most of the time. Well, it seems that being sick at this time of year is becoming a habit for me. This year it hit me a little earlier than last.
A week ago Monday, the 1ST, I woke up with one ear plugged. It was so plugged that I literally could hear my own voice inside my head. (no...I'm not possessed!) Anyway, the sound was twice as loud. The sound of my tires on the road seemed to have a deeper bass tone. Voices of others were more muted. I've never had it this bad. I found myself constantly trying to pop open the ear by contorting my mouth in such a way as to make it somehow open the ear canal. People were suggesting that I plug my nose and try to force the air through my ears to pop it open. All to no avail! As a child I would have to have a doctor clear the wax because my ear cavities are very small. It's not un-common for me to go about once a year to have that done.
It didn't seem to improve and on Tuesday it was a little bit worse. So while I was at work, I called my doctors office and made an appointment to have it checked. I was able to get in that afternoon with another physician other than my own. She told me that I had an inner ear infection with lots of fluid inside the ear. NO KIDDING! She gave me a prescription for Biaxin. A very potent prescription too. It was 500 mg per pill to be taken twice daily! Apparently there had been several cases of whooping cough showing up in the clinic and she just wanted to make sure the medicine took care of everything. It was to be taken with food as it could cause nausea. Even taking it with food, as I found out later, still made my stomach feel very unsteady. At work I worked through the nausea for at least 2-3 hours each day before it would subside. Along with that I usually had a small case of diarrhea. Nice huh?
This past Monday night, for some reason, I forgot to take it after I ate. Then on Tuesday at work, after I ate my lunch, I forgot again. So I went roughly 24 hours with out it. Before I left for bowling, I ate an early supper and then took my pill. After getting home my stomach was beginning to feel unsteady again. Normal. That night my sleep was restless to say the least. I was sleeping but not resting. I woke several times and my stomach was actually hurting. When my alarm sounded to get up for work, I was worse than before. I had diarrhea again and was freezing but yet sweating at the same time. I just couldn't get up the gumption to get ready for work. After finally deciding to call in sick, I vomited! ISH!!!
I didn't eat anything the entire day. All I could manage to get in me were two cans of Sprite. I slept alot of the day away. I knew I couldn't work the next day so I called in sick again for Thursday. I had stopped taking the Biaxin. There was no way I was going to take any more of it. My ear had been treated for about a week and was feeling OK.
Even yesterday, I could tell that my stomach was a little bit unsettled. In fact, I only ate once during the day until I made supper last night. I think I'm back on track to wellness. Hopefully nothing occurs again during Christmas! (sorry for the gory details!)