Being the absolutely true story of a bug in my ear. This is not a metaphor.
[If that title made you squirm, you might want to skip the rest. Also: photo of a dead bug.]
Picture if you will a perfect Maine summer day. Clear blue sky as far as the eye can see, which is pretty far because you're standing at the top of a hill in a wide open field.It's a might windy though, which is germane to this story. Because a gust of wind caught a bug and blew it directly into my right ear.
I don't know if you've ever had a living bug in your ear, but feeling it flapping around in there was a total freak-out. I think my family thought I was having some kind of seizure. Then there were two sharp beeping noises and the fluttering stopped. We tried to flush it with water and alcohol but no joy, although there was some blood. It didn't hurt, precisely, but felt seriously weird, like my head was lopsided or something. The googles told me as long as it wasn't, err, *discharging*, it wasn't an emergency. I was due to drive back to NY on Tuesday, and decided to deal with it there.
Flash forward to Wednesday morning. Let me at this point state two additional points:
1) I'm still unemployed and uninsured and
2) My primary care practice is a Federally Qualified Health Center, which means they are a safety net provider that is adapted to provide care for the uninsured. I picked this practice because FQHCs are known to provide more holistic socially adapted care, and pay their providers on a different model that doesn't necessarily encourage a lot of unnecessary procedures. They're also nearly always 501c3 non-profits.
This digression into the virtues of FQHCs brought to you by why I wanted to go to my practice rather than an emergency or urgent care facility. At least I'd be able to afford it.
By Wednesday, immune response had started to kick in and I had an ache down my neck. The physician came in with an MS3 and took a look. At first he couldn't see it until he moved the looker-thingy (technical term) and then went "whoa." Then he had the MS3 look, because "you're not likely to ever see this again."
Awesome.
It was all the way down next to the drum, and in its flailing had damaged the surface enough to make a fairly substantial scab. Unfortunately, its location meant the internist couldn't remove it. He tried, because he understood the financial issues (FQHCs...) but the tools available at that level were not up to the task. So, off to the ENT the next day. And this one doesn't have a handy sliding scale based on income.
Having a living bug in my ear was off-putting. Worrying a tiny bit that the bug was still alive for the next 5 days (I blame far, far too much science fiction) was emotionally wiggy. Neither of these things held a candle to the actual experience of having a tee-tiny vacuum cleaner inserted into your ear, followed by a curette, the vacuum again, and then finally about 2 cups of water sprayed in at high pressure. It wasn't even painful persay, just extraordinarily uncomfortable, like pins and needles that keep going on and on and getting worse. It finally came out after what felt like an aeon, but was actually about 10 minutes.
And what was this monster that took over my life for two days and has left me with a mild headache since Thursday?
Yep, that ridiculously tiny black dot. Best guess is it was some sort of gnat. A gnat that cost me $233.
So, there you go. How to get bugged, and then debugged. The good news is all I have left is the headache. There was no permanent damage to the inner ear, and I don't even need drops or antibiotics. The ache is gone in my neck, and aside from having to be careful about getting water in it for the next few days, it'll be fine.
Oh, and I also have one more thing. Anyone know how to preserve really tiny dead bugs?
Picture if you will a perfect Maine summer day. Clear blue sky as far as the eye can see, which is pretty far because you're standing at the top of a hill in a wide open field.It's a might windy though, which is germane to this story. Because a gust of wind caught a bug and blew it directly into my right ear.
I don't know if you've ever had a living bug in your ear, but feeling it flapping around in there was a total freak-out. I think my family thought I was having some kind of seizure. Then there were two sharp beeping noises and the fluttering stopped. We tried to flush it with water and alcohol but no joy, although there was some blood. It didn't hurt, precisely, but felt seriously weird, like my head was lopsided or something. The googles told me as long as it wasn't, err, *discharging*, it wasn't an emergency. I was due to drive back to NY on Tuesday, and decided to deal with it there.
Flash forward to Wednesday morning. Let me at this point state two additional points:
1) I'm still unemployed and uninsured and
2) My primary care practice is a Federally Qualified Health Center, which means they are a safety net provider that is adapted to provide care for the uninsured. I picked this practice because FQHCs are known to provide more holistic socially adapted care, and pay their providers on a different model that doesn't necessarily encourage a lot of unnecessary procedures. They're also nearly always 501c3 non-profits.
This digression into the virtues of FQHCs brought to you by why I wanted to go to my practice rather than an emergency or urgent care facility. At least I'd be able to afford it.
By Wednesday, immune response had started to kick in and I had an ache down my neck. The physician came in with an MS3 and took a look. At first he couldn't see it until he moved the looker-thingy (technical term) and then went "whoa." Then he had the MS3 look, because "you're not likely to ever see this again."
Awesome.
It was all the way down next to the drum, and in its flailing had damaged the surface enough to make a fairly substantial scab. Unfortunately, its location meant the internist couldn't remove it. He tried, because he understood the financial issues (FQHCs...) but the tools available at that level were not up to the task. So, off to the ENT the next day. And this one doesn't have a handy sliding scale based on income.
Having a living bug in my ear was off-putting. Worrying a tiny bit that the bug was still alive for the next 5 days (I blame far, far too much science fiction) was emotionally wiggy. Neither of these things held a candle to the actual experience of having a tee-tiny vacuum cleaner inserted into your ear, followed by a curette, the vacuum again, and then finally about 2 cups of water sprayed in at high pressure. It wasn't even painful persay, just extraordinarily uncomfortable, like pins and needles that keep going on and on and getting worse. It finally came out after what felt like an aeon, but was actually about 10 minutes.
And what was this monster that took over my life for two days and has left me with a mild headache since Thursday?
Yep, that ridiculously tiny black dot. Best guess is it was some sort of gnat. A gnat that cost me $233.
So, there you go. How to get bugged, and then debugged. The good news is all I have left is the headache. There was no permanent damage to the inner ear, and I don't even need drops or antibiotics. The ache is gone in my neck, and aside from having to be careful about getting water in it for the next few days, it'll be fine.
Oh, and I also have one more thing. Anyone know how to preserve really tiny dead bugs?