Ears to Ya

I got to leave school early exactly two times in my academic life. The first time I was about six and my father picked me up to bring me to the Barnum and Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden (a day I recall fondly). The second time, I had the audacity to ask the school nurse to call my mother to say I wasn't feeling well. This required her coming up to school (a staggering two blocks away) and signing me out early. Although I did feel a little off - perhaps I didn't eat my lunch and was lightheaded? - I was definitely not sick enough to meet my mothers standards. I think I wanted to be like other kids whose mothers I had witnessed picking them up for illness during the day whom I imagined spent the day on the couch being spoon fed chicken noodle soup and watching cartoons under a cozy blanket. What really happened was I wound up stuck in my room (no TV even) for lying. After this anti-climatic experience I didn't even dare to try to go home early - sick or no.

In my mother's mind, one was not really sick unless they were running a high fever, bleeding profusely (and honestly, how many times in a grade schoolers life is one bleeding profusely? and furthermore if you're bleeding profusely school attendance has got to be low on your list of priorities, no?), or vomiting. Under these circumstances, and these circumstances only, could one stay home from school. As a matter of fact, in the fourth grade I suffered from a case of hives and the chicken pox both. While I was allowed to stay home for the chicken pox (because of both school and health department mandates), I did get sent to school with hives. I'm not talking about a slight rash here, I'm talking huge red welts whose appearance was not unlike a relief map of the United States and what was then considered the Soviet Union. In addition, my lips were so swollen it seemed as if I had just returned from visiting an African tribe who placed bones through lips for aesthetic purposes (obviously I had access to National Geographic). The accompanying speech impediment was just icing on the cake. My feet were also swollen making walking difficult but sure as shit they still fit in my ugly ass, blue uniform school shoes. My mother reasoned that not being able to walk and talk properly would keep me out of trouble; armed with a bottle of caladryl lotion, off to school I went.

This is not to say that my mother was unsympathetic and uncaring when we were sick; quite the opposite. Aside from the hives situation, she hardly ever laughed out loud at all when we fell ill. She employed all the tricks in her bag to make us feel better: St. Joseph's chewable aspirin, Vicks Vapo Rub, alcohol rubs, ginger ale, dry toast and unsweetened hot tea. When these remedies did not heal us up and get us off to school, my mother called in the big guns.

My brother and I were both prone to frequent ear aches as children. Ear infections and burst ear drums have the annoying habit of being accompanied by a fever that will not go away on its own. It was during these times that my mother called upon her friend, the sadist. Somehow, my mother had in her employ an Italian-American man whose arcane medical knowledge allowed him to perform his voodoo in our very own bedrooms. While some may have called him a doctor, I have my misgivings. In broken English he would mutter what I think he believed were soothing tones. Accompanied by a black bag the size of my six year old self, this small, balding, bow-legged octogenarian inspired nothing but fear. And this was before he went to work on my ears. I recall one time screaming "my ear, my ear" while he confidently assured me that he was not touching my hair.

He went to work on my ears with what, in hindsight, I believe to have been dental picks and miniature axes. Digging deeply into my ear canal (and once, I think, penetrating my medula oblongata) amidst screaming and crying he would determine what was already known: ear infection. His methods were less than desirable and while the memory of his remedies are fuzzy, they clearly allowed me to survive another day and get back to school post haste.

This weeks tip: I mentioned my mother's use of Vicks Vapo Rub above, but she was a pure genius in the use of the unguent when it came to ear aches. Applying a small amount to a cotton ball, she would place this in the cup of my ailing ear. She would then have me lie on the affected ear which created what felt like a an individual heating pad, without the need for electricity and minus the risk of burning. The relief was nearly immediate. Coupled with ibuprofen, or your pain reliever of choice, the sufferer can get much needed rest. This works so well that I have used this remedy, as an adult, on myself and my own children. For added comfort, I also rub Vicks behind the ear and down the eustachian tubes (the tubes that connect the ears to the throat). By the way, the store brand of mentholated rub works equally well as the Vicks brand.