Life is a Cabaret

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I am not getting drunk. :p

Went to see my dentist yesterday, and it turns out that I do not have TMJ. Whew! Big relief. Whatever happened two weeks ago was most likely just the incipient ear infection, I suppose. Still, I did get a mouth guard, just in case the pain comes back at some point, but my dentist says I don't need to wear it if I'm not in pain.

Hmmm. There are things I could say about my weekend and the convention I went to, but I don't really feel like it. I am so boring lately. *sigh*

Though on the other hand, I am getting really into Bones. Not along the lines of my big fandoms (Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Doctor Who), but more like my smaller ones, like X-Files and West Wing. I have no urge to write fic for it, and little urge to read fic for it, but I really want to watch more of it. Netflix, hurry up! XD

Okay, so the thing that's been making my life a misery this weekend is a particularly nasty ear infection. I'm still gonna get checked out for TMJ, but for now I have to deal with the ear infection, which is still causing me no little amount of pain.

(Seriously, last night I went to bed at 12:30, about ten hours before I had to be up this morning. But I was in so much pain that I didn't fall asleep until past five, and even then I kept waking up. I am still amazed that I have not been tired enough to need a nap today, despite getting at most four or five hours of sleep.)

But I went to the health center and mentioned that okay last time the doctor said I had TMJ, but right now I am in so much pain that I need something done about it. This time I got a different doctor, and she took one look in my ear and said it was a bad infection. Gah. Though at least this is fixable.

And now I have four different medications (or rather, three right now, one that's coming in tomorrow since the pharmacist said it was rarer and needed to be ordered). Two different antibiotics, tylenol with codeine, and the thing I'll get tomorrow which I think is another analgesic.

In other news, I ordered the Journal of Impossible Things, and that came today. I flicked through it--damn, it's tiny--but was in too much pain to really try to read that handwriting. Will look at it more in depth when am feeling better.

So at the end of December, I had a period of about three or four days where my ear was really hurting and I didn't know why. I thought it might be an ear infection, and figured that I'd talk to my parents about finding a doctor, but then it went away and I let it go.

Now it came back. For the past few days, my ear has been hurting, enough so that it's hard to sleep on it (I'm a side sleeper, and can't sleep when I'm not on my side). This time there was jaw pain as well, especially when chewing.

Today I went to see someone at the school health center, and she said it might be TMJ, or pain in my temporomandibular joint. I looked it up and it makes sense given that that's basically where the pain is, and it does hurt to chew, and it says it's commonly mistaken for ear pain. But looking at wikipedia's list of causes, I'm not sure what caused mine (if TMJ is what it is), since I don't grind my teeth, or chew gum or my nails, or neglect my teeth. The person I saw today suggested I see a dentist for a proper diagnosis, so I think I'll talk to my parents about doing that when I go home for spring break.

Now another annoying thing is that yesterday my parents emailed and said that my little sister is thinking about coming to visit me for her spring break. This would be completely awesome and I'd love to have her, but I don't know where she'd stay. Now I want to talk to my RA and see if there are any options, or if she has any suggestions, but she's not here. She wasn't here last night, and she hasn't been here all afternoon, and she seems to not be here very often.

Am I being unreasonable to think this is not a good thing for an RA? I mean, the entire point of a resident assistant is to be available to your residents for questions and assistance. Yeah, I'm living in an upperclassmen dorm where maybe she thinks that people already know how dorm living works and therefore don't need her that often, and I really don't need her that often, but when I do need her, I'd like to be able to find her within twenty-four hours, at least. Of course she has her own life, but why apply to be an RA if you're not willing to spend time to be available to your residents? She seems to be gone far more often than she's around, and it's annoying.