When You're Sick in the Head

Remember a couple days ago when I was bitching about not feeling well and cranking about my cold sores and then sounded particularly whiny because I thought maybe I was getting an ear infection but probably not and it sounded like maybe I was being over-dramatic and me me me?

My ear hurt most of that day, but sort of simmered down towards the end of it. When I woke up yesterday morning, it didn't hurt any more and I thought, "See, buck up. You're fine."

At 9 am, I noticed that the top of my head felt bruised. At 10 am I thought, hey my ear hurts again. At 10.30 am, I could feel the pain literally radiating out from my eardrum. It felt like squiggly waves casting out over my head in a net.

I went to the clinic.

The doctor, who is much nicer than my doctor, looked in my left ear and said, "Yes, that's infected."

Looked in my right ear and said "This one's not hurting you too?"

It started hurting too.

Off I went to get my antibiotics and finish up a few things at work. Then home and to bed for a couple of hours. Woke up to the left side of my head feeling numb. Stars of pain here and there, but really, it didn't hurt too badly. Took some miraculous advil and felt much better very soon.

And then I tried to make dinner.

I get migraines every once in a while and they're weird. They don't really hurt. I can't really feel them. But they break my brain. The story I tell most often to illustrate this is the time at Venus Envy Halifax, after I'd been working there for 5 months, when Shelley asked why the back lights weren't on. I said, "Oh, I tried a bunch of different things, but they're broken." She went over and turned the switch on.

Last night I really really wanted garlicky chick pea soup and kale for dinner. So I poured some oil in a pot, and turned the burner on and chopped the garlic while I waited for the oil to heat. When I was done with the garlic, I looked over and the oil was smoking. Checked the setting and it was on high.

So instead of say, par example, taking the pot off the stove and letting the oil cool down, I thought, "Huh, HI. Whaddaya know." and dumped the garlic in. Where it promptly burned and smoked up my kitchen more.

"Huh," I thought "I should do something with that oil and garlic. It's ruined. Huh. I should dump it down the sink. Wait a minute. Maybe it's bad to pour oil down the sink? I don't know. What do you do with hot fat? Right, you put it in a container. Huh. Oh good, there's a plastic tub in the sink. Wait. This oil is boiling. That tub is plastic. Is there something wrong here? I think there might be something wrong here. [tick tick tick] No, no, it should be fine. Sheesh, Butcher, stop overthinking this. Just pour the oil...

Oh. Melting. Right."

The oil went down the sink.