I'm visiting my parents this week. It's warmer here and less snowy. Tonight, I am promised an ice storm. I hope it's delivered because I love the sound of ice raining down and coating everything, and I love the way everything is transformed into glazed jewelry by a really good ice storm.
My older sister, brother-in-law, and newly minted two-year-old nephew are coming tomorrow, though, so for their sakes I hope things aren't bad. The nephew is very mobile now, like a tiny, short-haired explosion. His recently acquired knowledge of how to smile for cameras (and his huge head and lack of hair) makes him strongly resemble Julius the Monkey, but I am not supposed to tell his parents that.
We're ear-ache buddies. I might have an ear infection right now, but I think he's currently free of that affliction for once. His ear tubes are doing their jobs, so he can hear now and is a hilarious chatterbox. I'm sure someone will bring up the biting incident from his preschool, so I can hear him mispronounce "bit" as "bitch." Adults are so easily entertained.
I'm seriously considering my own doctor's advice to get tubes put in my ears again before my next airplane ride. I'm a thirty-year-old woman, but I guess you never really outgrow a head that's too small. Alas. If you could somehow average my nephew's head and mine, we would both be normal-sized, and our ears would be better for it.
How's your January going so far?
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I went to an ENT once who wanted me to get tubes. He complained about my "tiny ear canal" and insisted that it would have to be an outpatient procedure instead of a 10-minute office surgery, and that's the point where I decided against it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I've finally figured out a method that (for me) almost completely removes ear pain on planes. For me, the pain happened almost exclusively during landing. If I take a sudafed about 1 1/2 hours before landing, and then as we start the descent I take a couple of squirts of Astelin nasal spray, I'm pretty much good. Your milage may vary, of course.
Yeah, the landings always killed me. The thing that worked when I visited my sister overseas was suggested to me by that same ENT (who said it would be a 10 minute office procedure :) and was similar.
ReplyDeleteSince I'm already on way too much allergy medicine (with decongestants), he suggested Afrin nasal spray and a ton of water. It worked. I used cough drops and about 8 million sips of water, and I could hear when I landed, though my throat felt like tenderized meat. :) Can't win 'em all . . .
This last time, I couldn't get any water since I had to go through security again, so it didn't work out quite so well. Still, it was way better than the first few plane rides when I was functionally deaf for a couple days afterward or in such severe pain I longed for a mallet.
Flying is awesome. (I am not being sarcastic.) Really. Clouds. Yay . . .
I'm glad you found something that worked! Flying really is worth it, isn't it?
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