Guys, I have been totally out of commission this week. I woke up sometime in the night Monday night/early Tuesday morning with terrible ear pain. Then Tuesday morning I did the dumbest thing possible (in ignorance), I took a bath. Which probably contributed to the the terrible ear infection I was diagnosed with Tuesday night at a walk-in clinic. The doctor actually seemed impressed at how bad my infection was. And, side note, her name was Alison Cameron (you know, like the character on House?). But I digress. She prescribed me oral and ear drop antibiotics, recommended a heat pack for pain, and sent me on my way.

But things were not getting better. If anything, they were getting worse. So I went to a different walk-in (as the first wasn't open at the time and I was in too much agony to wait). This doctor was also impressed by the severity of my infection (not an inner ear infection, but swimmer's ear, which is an infection of the ear canal). He changed my oral antibiotics and prescribed me Percocet for the pain. He seemed surprised the first doctor hadn't given me any pain meds, but I'll cut her some slack as I wasn't in so much pain that I was bawling in her office like I was at the second doctor's clinic.

The Percocet was awesome...until the nausea kicked in. The only thing worse than being in terrible pain? Being in terrible pain and throwing up repeatedly.

Soooooo...back to the doctor I went.

I'm now on five different meds: oral antibiotics, acidophilus to restore the good bacteria to my gut that the antibiotics kill, ear drop antibiotics, Percocet for pain, and Metoclopramide for the nausea caused by the Percocet.

The good news is that they appear to be working. So, you know, that's good.

The bad news is that the infection is clearing up verry, verry slowly. Two of the five medications cause drowsiness as a side effect. As a result I'm missing the only bachelorette party to which I've ever been invited. I've also missed out on a week's worth of packing and preparing for...




That's right! I'm competing in the new season, to debut next week. Once voting opens I will let you know so you can vote for your favorite project. But I won't be revealing which project is mine. That's cheating! Just vote for your favorite!

If you're in a voting mood, I will reveal to you which photo of mine is a finalist in a Mommy Necklaces FB contest. You'll have to "like" Mommy Necklaces to vote (but really, why wouldn't you? They often do giveaways for their FB fans plus they sometimes sell exclusive designs only available on FB)! Then navigate to the Ambience voting album. You can vote for a maximum of FIVE photos. I'd love to have your vote (the top five winners get a necklace from the Ambience collection). My entry looks like this:


I worked really hard editing this image to showcase the beautiful, ambient, sunny glow that was out that day. Then about 24 hours later I got this awful infection. Ugh. So, I'm playing the sympathy card. Please vote for me and make next week better than the last has been. :)

YOU can also win by commenting on each photo with what you feel the ambient mood of that picture is. One random photo will be selected at the end of voting (Monday evening). Then one random commenter from that photo will be selected to win a necklace!

And now I'm off...to take more meds. Hopefully I'll be back to normal soon.