All Ears

A mid-week blog is definitely not my norm as my schedule barely allowed for time to call my husband today on our anniversary, but my circumstances are a bit unusual at the moment so I have decided to post an entry quickly. Since approximately last Thursday, I have been suffering from an inability to hear to my normal capacity. The feeling has ranged from one resembling that of water trapped in one's ear canal to actual pain. Not only is this a nuisance to my day to day life but it has made interactions with others a bit awkward as I have had to ask people to repeat themselves numerous times. Not to mention the fact that one of the crucial elements to the Bikram series is the set of balancing postures for which one requires, at the very least, an equilibrium that is fully intact. Over the weekend, my roommate and I were at CVS so I asked the pharmacist for a recommendation for an over-the-counter medication to alleviate my suffering. I walked out with an ear wax removal kit but was skeptical, if I do say so myself, of his diagnosis (I clean my ears daily, thank you very much). By Monday I was not only in severe pain, but was hearing a ringing vibration from both sides of my head. I could barely make it through posture clinic and each yoga class felt like the longest 90 minutes of my life. By the time our 9:30 p.m. Anatomy lecture rolled around I had reached a breaking point and went in search of the staff nurse. And then it happened. I turned into one of the many (many) girls who have lost all control of their emotions here and let it all out in tears (this is very common for BYTT). The second I was in the nurse's presence I found myself crying "I can't hear anything!" and then it was a waterworks show from there . . . she assured me that crying over a physical ailment here at training is very normal and that I needed to see a doctor asap because I probably had an ear infection. "I can't believe I am crying about a f'n ear infection!" I said to her; yet inside I could believe it because of all the stress we have been under and how hard it had been to function under these circumstances. The crying subsided but the aching feeling that I just wanted my mom didn't and I had to remind myself that I am 31 years old and that there are only 6 weeks left of the training (although that wasn't much of a comfort). The nurse excused me from morning class the following day so I could go to the urgent care center down the street. That is where I learned that I did, indeed, have a double ear infection and was prescribed drops, nasal spray and a z-pack. Lovely. I was also excused from class from Tuesday to Friday morning which is IONS in our yoga bubble world. This means that I miss 6 classes (but am still responsible for signing in)!! Although I know my body needs it, I am a bit concerned about how I will feel once I return to my mat on Friday morning. But for now, I have some free time while everyone else is in class. I have been responsibly using this time to study dialogue and have refrained from taking an oh-so-tempting nap in the evening but today I decided to cut myself some slack and blog while my ear drops work their magic. I'm not certain how I even picked up infections in both ears- aren't kids' ears supposed to get infected? I hope it doesn't have anything to do with sweat from class getting trapped in my ear (I know, eew) because I don't see how I can avoid this scenario in the near future . . but if anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears.