Misadventures with Doctors

My body's New Year's present to me was an ear infection, or two, or just plain ear pain.  I don't really know.  Why not go to the doctor you ask?  Well, I did and to call him a Quack is a bit of a compliment.

Let me start by saying that I wasn't one of those kids that got ear infections all the time.  In fact, I never had an ear infection until I was 25 years old.  I'm not exactly sure what caused it then but I had just moved to Houston and hadn't splurged on Cobra so I was essentially uninsured. 

Having never had an ear infection before, I could only assume that having some ear pain, a clogged ear, and eventually hearing loss was just that.  I tried some home remedies at first but nothing was cutting it.  So after the pain escalated to losing the ability to chew and waking up every 30 minutes from pain, I decided to suck it up.  A doctor's visit and antibiotics weren't exactly going to break the bank.  Away I went.

After a week of antibiotics, the ear infection was gone.  However, to my dismay, this would be the beginning of constant ear problems.  What I am about to say is going to sound like I am exaggerating.  I assure you, I am not. Since that ear infection 3 1/2 years ago, my ears have itched me.  Not every few weeks I notice my ears are a little itchy. No. This is every day all day for 3 1/2 years my ears have been in a constant state of itchiness.  The fact that I haven't been locked up in an insane asylum yet speaks to my mental stability--although a lot of my other personality traits may hint otherwise.

So in these 3 1/2 years, I have stuck just about everything that I could fit and scratch with into my ear. DON'T JUDGE! A) I know you're not supposed to stick anything smaller than your elbow into your ear for it's own health. B) I know and recognize how gross that sounds.  But the truth is, if you dealt with what I've dealt with over all this time, you too would resort to these actions.

During this time, I have twice been to an ENT because whatever I stuck in my ear pushed the ear wax too far and I ended up with a clogged ear.  Both times, removing the wax was painless both to my ear and as a process.

But whatever happened two weeks ago was not painless.  It seemed that I woke up on New Year's Day with a double ear infection.  I was in terrible pain.  Unsure of what to do and since these came out of nowhere, I again tried to home medicate.  This attempt only lasted about a day.  I was soon on the phone with a GP that I've gone to a few times.  They were able to get me in the next morning.

The next day I saw the doctor.  He walked into the room and asked me about my ears.  I told him that I had been in a lot of pain for about two days.  Then he took a look.

Again, no exaggeration, his exact words: "Did anyone tell you you have narrow ear canals?"
Nope.
"I can't see anything you're ears are too swollen." 

What's up, Captain Obvious? Did you miss the part where I told you that I was here for ear issues. Of course, they're swollen.  I could have read about that on WebMD.  What are you going to do about it??

So he proceded to fumble around and didn't know what to do.  I finally jumped off the seat and showed him the antibiotics that I had been prescribed all those years ago for the original ear infection. He grumbled "Okay" and scribbled down a prescription.

I asked him if there was anything he could do for the pain.  Now mind you, I was there for an ear infection.  The night before I was up the entire night in excruciating pain.  He looked at me as if I was some low-life drug seeker.  He asked if I had taken anything.  When I told him that 3 Advils weren't cutting it, he "prescribed" Extra Strength Tylenol. Thanks. That was helpful.

Then I asked him if there was anything he could tell me to do about my itchy ears. He looked at me like I had two heads, threw his arms up, and told me "No, there's nothing I could do."

Whaaaaa? Talk about thanks for nothing.

So, I left in frustration and headed to the CVS that was literally at the end of the block.  I've never been to CVS before.  Pretty much as long as I can remember, I have gotten my prescriptions from Walgreens.  Unfortunately, they no longer accept my insurance. I was already pretty upset about this prior to this trip to CVS.

I headed to the back of the CVS and handed the Tech my newly written prescription.  He asked me for some identifying information to which I quickly told him that I had never been to CVS before and wouldn't be in the computer.  Take it from someone that has worked in customer service a long time, this was an invitation for the Tech to show me that I should have been going to CVS this whole time and to make me forget all about Walgreens.

Instead, what I got was ::CLICK::CLICK::CLICK:: on his computer.  He walked away. He came back. He walked away again. He came back.  He showed the Pharmacist the script but she was on the phone. He walked away again. He came back.  All the while, never saying a single word to me about what he was doing.

Finally, they both looked at me and said "We don't have this."

Great. Just my luck.

Well, I was headed in the direction of home and there's a Walgreens around the corner from my house.  I walked up to the counter and handed the Tech my script.  She immediately picked up the phone and said to me, "We have to call the doctor.  He didn't write what he was prescribing.  He just wrote the instructions."

So this is how Walgreens helped me determine that the doctor was a Quack and how the CVS I went to had only morons on duty that day.

And those were my misadventures with two ear infections, a doctor, and a pharmacist.  Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke... It sure felt that way.