I’m writing to you from a small village in the south of France, in a garden as unlike my own as is physically possible. Being next to the ocean and frequented by days of rain, the humidity is intense. Everything grows, and does so quickly, consuming fence posts and garden beds and tree trunks seemingly overnight.
But in this magical garden there is also a 200+ year old olive tree posted just outside my bedroom window, and it has been my constant companion these past weeks we’ve spent here—especially since most of them were spent in bed, being sick.
After three years of avoiding it, my husband and I finally caught COVID. On top of that, I found myself with an ear infection that continued to get worse. Anything involving your head almost always means intense pain, but the throbbing I experienced in my ear was unlike anything else.
I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t sleep well, and could barely exist without aspirin. I was taking oral antibiotics, probiotics and Tylenol on constant rotation every few hours—a challenge for my normally pill and doctor-averse self.
But the worst part is that the pain seemed to be getting worse and not better. I had the sense that there was something in my ear that needed to come out, and until that happened—this new burning hot pulsing pain would be my new normal.
During those days and hours of being able to do practically nothing, I started a new practice of “sitting with my pain.” Indeed, it wasn’t giving me much of a choice. But I started visualizing my pain not as an enemy invading the body, and instead as a small fuzzy white creature (pain is bright white, anyone will tell you), trying to tell me something.
“Okay,” I said to the small scared creature. “I am listening, what do we need to do?”
The throbbing in my ear abated slightly, and it said, “You have something in your ear that needs to come out, NOW.”
The next day, after barely sleeping I told my mother-in-law that I absolutely needed to see someone that day. I felt bad insisting. She’d already called upwards of 15 offices and hospitals, with no luck. ER’s wouldn’t take me, I needed to see a specialist: Something made more complicated by the fact that I’d be a new patient asking for a last-minute appointment. But the message from my pain had been clear: You need help now.
After several more phone calls, one ENT doctor at a hospital an hour away finally agreed to see me. The next few hours were a blur. After confirming I had a ruptured ear drum and bad infection, the doctor flushed out my ear. I almost blacked out from the pain, but when it was over—the relief was immediate. The little white creature had been right all along.
One of the many things I think our Western medical system gets wrong is that it teaches us to value the opinions of others (medical professionals, random authors on the internet) over our own.
Doctors in particular are given a power that is unquestionable, and like children we are made to listen no matter what. But then, much like my own story, there are an innumerable stories of people who, if they hadn’t advocated for themselves, would be in dire straights.
The infection in my ear was such that had it not been seen so quickly, had I not advocated for myself, I risked permanent hearing loss. My tympanic membrane was ruptured, and without anywhere to go the infection would have likely continued into my inner ear, ruining the fine balance of anatomy therein that controls our ability to hear.
I am not saying that all pain has a higher power or reason, but sometimes it does. Sometimes our body is telling us something that we may not want to hear, have been avoiding, or just altogether ignoring.
Sometimes we don’t need to Google it or hear it from a doctor to know that there is something deeply wrong. Sometimes, all we need to do is trust our inner knowing, listen to the message our pain is giving us, and honor it.
❤️ Your words are so true for me too. We know ourselves and our bodies better than any doctor and we have to be the ones to advocate for what we need - always.