Say What?

Nothing could be more perfect than this day, sitting on the back porch with the dogs and waiting for the next cool breeze to come along and rustle the big leatherleaf fern and cause the big bamboo culms to rustle and rub against each other.

At least I imagine they are rustling because my ears are stopped up, still. I can unstop my right ear by leaning my head to the right about 90 degrees, causing fluid to passing from one place to another in my head--I can hear it go glug, glug, glug, about 3 or 4 times--and my right ear hearing improves. But then it stops up again when I sit up straight.

And sitting here couldn't be more pleasant because sitting is about all I can do. Any kind of physical activity tires me out to such a degree that it reminds me of the time in Tucson when I was determined to chop down a tree with an ax and that I would do it from start to finish without stopping, one blow after another until it was finished, no matter what (even with a dull ax that I could have sharpened first), until after I'd finished about 200 blows of the ax (and tree still standing) I fell to my knees and nearly threw up (then I got out my chainsaw). That's how I felt this morning when I tried, for about 30 seconds, to put some seal on the grout.

I'm on my second round of antibiotics and have just finished taking some steroids and I'm not a bit better. I found the answer online:

Otitis media with effusion
Otitis media with effusion (uh-FEW-zhun), or OME, is a build up of fluid in the middle ear without signs and symptoms of acute infection (pain, redness of the eardrum, pus, and fever). OME is more common than AOM, and may be caused by viral upper respiratory infections, allergies, or exposure to irritants (such as cigarette smoke). The build up of fluid in the middle ear does not usually cause pain and almost always goes away on its own. OME will not usually benefit from antibiotic treatment.

The irritant, in my case, has been all the mortar and grout dust I've gotten in my nose over the past several weeks.

Yesterday Cheryl came down with the same fatigue symptoms, only her ears are fine. And she has to shout for me to hear, especially when I'm outside on a perfect day.

She's yelling something at me now, I think. Ha, ha...