The Gaming Den

Apparently, I'm not supposed to go to sleep before 2 AM.

Every time I try to turn in before midnight, something happens to keep me up. The other night, another lightning bolt struck the tree outside my window. It made a sound like a bomb going off.

Tomorrow--well, okay, today, it's 1:13 AM--one of my sisters is moving into her dorm at her college an hour away. I'm helping her to move in.

But, tonight of all nights, the other sister (I have two. One's eighteen, one's 12) has an ear infection so painful she can't sleep and it's making her sniffle back tears.

So, yes, I hear someone blowing their nose continually, and checked it out.

There's not a doctor's office open at 1 in the morning, and it's not like it's an emergency. So I gave her an advil and she's in my chair in my room, reading. And it's keeping her mind off of her ear, so I'm not about to tell her to get out.

But, still. It's a touch irritating that when I genuinely want to get enough sleep that I can wake up before 8 in the morning and not want to crawl back in bed...Something happens to keep me up.

And, yeah, I still live with the parents. I haven't been able to find a job that pays enough to let me live on my own, and my grades at college aren't enough for them to want to let me use a dorm or anything.

That really sucks. And I feel sorry for your younger sister, ear infections can be of such an intense pain that you practically wish for death, this coming from someone who is used to the occasional paralysing back pain. It's good to always keep Panadine Extra (or whatever equivalent with 15mg Codeine to the tablet) on hand, at the minimum. Better still if it's Oxy.

This is pure, excruciating agony, like a thing from beyond the far realm has torn its way into this world, surrounded by a bubble of pure entropy, and forced itself down my ear-throat tube, digging its tendrils in as it lies there, each small movement of it sending an eternity of tearing pain through my head and neck, whispering maddening things into my psyche as it lays its eggs in my ear and throat, the larval creatures bursting forth, looking like goat-headed multi-winged octopoidal maggots, and as they awaken, surrounded by a ring of fire, they utter one word...

...and that word is the one that ends the world, shattering reality into a million fragments and plunging us screaming into a realm of nightmares.

Still, I hope you start getting sleep soon.

Ear infections are bad shit, indeed. Had constant ones until I was 5 or 6. Now? I have dead nerves there and have lost about 30-40% of my hearing. Only way to tell if I'm infected is if my balance is way off (more than usual).

Hope she gets better soon. And you get some sleep, naturally.

Ear drops are a better solution than painkillers in a situation like this, as the pain is hardly going away... And they're safer to keep on hand. Witchhazel is what I keep around for weird stuff like that.

I'd suggest also keeping Guaifenesin as something in the house; it's an expectorant. Take it with a quarter or more liters of water; it tells your body to provide more wetness to your mucus membranes. It helps drain sinuses and make coughs productive. It's the active ingredient in 'M' type cough medicines like Mucinex. I use it to treat sinus headaches (100mg + ibuprofen and/or pseudoephedrine)

-Crissa

Well, okay.

The younger sister's got some eardrops now. She say they're helping. The other one has been safely moved into her dorm.

I was lucky in never contracting an ear infection, I suppose the trade off is that i nearly died twice before the age of 8

bourdain89 wrote:I was lucky in never contracting an ear infection, I suppose the trade off is that i nearly died twice before the age of 8

I'll do you one better. According to my mother, I spent every major holiday until age 3 in the hospital. Fever of 106 from something during those years. I'd be so fucking dead if not for modern medicine.