A Leaky Bag of Protoplasm in Our Nation's Capital

[serenissima]

Chris and I drove to Washington, DC for the weekend, daisho's presence being our excuse. We'd both wanted to visit DC for a while. We got a late start, due to a complication I'll address below, and arrived mid-afternoon Saturday. After some wandering around confusedly, we managed to meet with daisho in time to grab a sandwich and see part of the Smithsonian Museum of American History together.

Rai spent Sunday with his local friends, and the two of us roamed the National Mall by ourselves. We went to the National Archives in the morning, where they keep the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. I felt moved at seeing these documents. It must be an indescribable feeling to sign your name to a piece of paper you hope will remain famous centuries later. The National Archives also has a new, interactive exhibit showing off some of their holdings from the Public Vaults, which was excellent. I think we spent three hours in there. In the afternoon, we returned to the American History museum, and then drove home after closing time.

What held me up Saturday morning:
I had my ears double-pierced a couple weeks ago, and about last Thursday the left ear piercing got infected. It was red, itchy, and sensitive, but I thought I was doing all right with my home treatment of cleaning twice a day and application of triple-antibiotic ointment. Friday night the earlobe was puffy and painful. By 6 AM Saturday morning, it had swollen to twice normal size, and was oozing plenty of serum. I removed the earring with some trouble -- the tissue had actually puffed up enough to completely enclose the stud -- and, at Chris' insistence, went to the emergency room to get a prescription for oral antibiotics. Not that I argued.

I then equipped myself with cotton pads, bottles of antiseptic cleanser, prescription-strength antibiotic ointment, and antibiotic pills. However, I spent the weekend leaking yellow, watery serum from my huge, pink left earlobe. Rai was polite enough not to say a word about it. The damn thing itches whenever anything touches it, including my hair, which I have pinned back with four clips on the left side. It drips on my clothing maybe twice a minute. Right now I am wearing a dish towel draped fashionably around my neck to protect my shirt. The serum dries and makes crusts behind and around the bottom of my ear, which I have to clean every two or three hours. Little wisps of hair that escape from the clips get stuck in it. When I sleep, I can't roll over, because if I lie on my left side, my swollen ear is squished against the pillow and hurts, and if I lie on my right side, I'm sure I can feel the serum oozing into my ear canal. In sum, it's a horrible nuisance, and I can't wait for it to stop.

Rai is coming up Tuesday night to tour the city with us on Wednesday. I very much hope I am less drippy by then.

Comments

[rhynyx.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, that sounds perfectly dreadful. I hope you feel better soon.

[copperwolf.livejournal.com]

Thank you. This morning it's looking a lot better: only 1.5 times normal size, and hasn't dripped in the 45 minutes I've been up.

[kavasa.livejournal.com]

Oh man, that's a bummer. Did you get it done at one of the mall places, with the guns? Those are the most common sources of infection; the parlors sterilize the needles they use in an autoclave in between each use. Get better soon. :|

Also, DC is a great city, I'd like to have, oh, around a month to wander around it aimlessly. The Smithsonians are particularly righteous.

[rhynyx.livejournal.com]

Which DC did *you* go to? The one I grew up near was a filthy dirty place filled with icky people like politicians and touristy... oh. Tourist means seeing the good stuff and not the bad. You prolly didn't hafta drive through it either, didja? Well. Yes. Pretty city, give your money, tourist tourist money yay!

[copperwolf.livejournal.com]

Yes, I had the piercing done at a Claire's store at the mall. I had week of being healthy before the infection set in, so I'm inclined to attribute it to touching my ear with my own grubby fingers, but you may be right.

And yeah, I think you could see most of the stuff in a month. :)

[zeeth_kyrah]

I would have suggested teatree oil, which soaks into the skin and will therefore get closer to the source of the infection. It's worked very nicely on every wound and pimple I've put it on. Note that it can stimulate pain receptors, though it's not terribly bad about that.

[copperwolf.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with teatree oil. Where do you get it?

[zeeth_kyrah]

Mostly health-food and nutrition stores. The plant is a hard to grow import from Australia. Its essential oil is proven effective against bacteria, viruses, and fungi; easily soaks into the skin; stimulates pain receptors in open wounds much like hydrogen peroxide will; is effective for direct application in mixtures as small as .01% (that's right, one hundredth of a percent concentration, though I'd go with something stronger for infections like yours); evaporates quickly; and has a strong scent which is just a little like cedar.

Note that my mom says it smells like pine tar, which was an old American home remedy for the same sorts of things (but I don't know if pine tar actually works so well as teatree does, having never tried it myself).