If there is one thing that I’ve had to do lately more than usual, it is to roll with the punches. As most of my friends know from Facebook or otherwise, I’ve been having a tremendous amount of struggle with reoccurring ear infections. 5 in the past 4 months to be exact. It has been so frustrating to me over these past 4 months having to deal with doctors that have no other answer for me than to give me more antibiotics. I’m not dumb, I know that you can only take so many antibiotics before that bacteria can no longer be killed by those same antibiotics.
For the first 21 years of my life, I don’t think I ever had an ear infection, unless it was when I was very small….so why now? Since I only usually talk about it briefly, I will talk a little bit about my journey on here, then people can choose whether or not they want to hear me gripe or not. It all started back in November, on the 9th to be exact. I woke up on a Friday afternoon just not feeling right, my ear sounded muffled and it hurt, really badly. I figured it would just go away and my friends from Pitt came to visit that weekend. When I woke up the next day I had immense pain in my ear, I couldn’t even lay my head on the pillow on that side and the muffled feeling was even worse. Fed up with the whole thing, after a consult with my mom, I called the on-call doctor who called me in a Z-pack. I got the antibiotic on the 11th and did my 5 day treatment….no relief AND it actually went into my other ear as well.
I then call the doctor to see what to do next, she puts me on another antibiotic and it kills it. A few weeks later, I get another one, this time in the more mild ear from the previous infection. This time I make an appointment with the doctor. I get another antibiotic, Nasonex, and Xyzal to help clear things up…they work and to my surprise, they continue to work for another month. I get done with the Xyzal and 4 days later….another infection, in my right ear this time. They give me yet another antibiotic and tell me that if it doesn’t help, I will need to go to the specialist. Well it cleared it up but my ears were still feeling itchy so I got a referral.
As luck would have it, they were able to get me in on this past Monday. Instead of seeing the doctor, I saw the CRNP. She looks in my ears, gives me a hearing test, asks me some questions, looks in my nose and tells me that everything looks perfectly normal and that if I get another one to call her and she would fit me in immediately Well guess what, on Tuesday my ears start itching. Wednesday I start feeling some pain and some feverish symptoms. Thursday I wake up and I know I’ve gotten another one in the opposite ear. So I call and get scheduled for this morning at 8am. I basically dropped everything and came home for the appointment. I cried on my way home from State College because I am just so frustrated in wanting to know how to stop this cycle.
This morning I go for my appointment, she looks in my ear and says that it is indeed infected and rather nasty looking….so instead of searching for a cause to the problem I get 3 prescriptions. I tell the CRNP that the meds help but once I’m done, they just come back. I go back in 2 weeks after my meds are done to see what’s up. I just have this feeling in my heart that something isn’t right. There’s no reason why I should be getting these so frequently. Give me tubes in my ears, I don’t care, I just want a solution.
This afternoon was not much better in getting one hit after another. I went to Walmart to get my prescriptions filled and get the bill of 75 dollars. I about faint. Punch #2 for the day. Punch #3 came when I was trying to check out and the machine froze. I walked out of Walmart wondering why I’m getting these punches thrown at me. Ear infection after ear infection, problem after problem. But where it changes is in my attitude. I’m not going to let it get me down. Yes, these infections are horrible, paying dollar after dollar for medicine is annoying and a hurtpiece to my bank account, but being negative about it will get me no where.
When was the last time you had something go wrong and you kept a positive attitude? How did that feel? Even though I am greatly upset by my current situation, I’m not letting it falter my confidence. I will keep fighting, because that’s the only choice I have. Giving up is not an option. When I got back into my car this afternoon I listened to Matthew West, one of my favorite Christian artists and it just so happened that when I turned on the car, his song “Strong Enough” was on. I prayed for God to give me strength to keep my positive attitude and to help me through this time. I know there are plenty of people that are worse off than me and I prayed for them. It’s times like these where I realize just how good I do have it even though this situation isn’t good.
In life I think it’s key to roll with the punches. We’re going to have good and bad days, but it’s the times where we find the positive in situations that we really come out ahead because we do something for our own good and for our own well-being. Negativity is so easy to fall into, and believe me, a year ago I would have been right in the misery side of things. But not this time, not now. I’m choosing to keep my chin up even though I may not be satisfied with my situation.
He will provide the answers to me sometime, I just have to trust Him.