Swimmer's Ear
Growing up, I was notorious for getting ear infections. I probably had one every couple of months and it got so bad that I needed to get tubes put in 3 times. In 2019, my immediate family and my cousins’ family, the Mitreys (Aunt Melissa, Uncle Andy, Alex/his girlfriend Emma, Maci, Nicholas, and Ellie) Went on a vacation to Hatteras, North Carolina. At one point Ryan, Nicholas, Josh, and I had a chicken fight. Nicholas and I were the tops and as we were roughhousing, Nicholas grabbed my head and slammed it into the water, right ear first. Ever since then I've been having complications with my right ear whenever I go into the water.
Last Summer, when I was in Colorado for the 4th of July, the Mitreys and my family went to Norris Lake in Tennessee. Since then the Mitreys bought a house on Norris Lake. I have to go back to work at New Story in mid-July, for the summer school program. On top of that Luke had a ton of grad parties to go and with my parent’s business, Kobolt, it was just logistically impossible for us to get down to Florida this year. Luckily the week of June 12th, the lake house was not being rented out and the Mitreys asked us if we wanted to go with them.
When we got to the lake house, we said hi to the Mitreys (minus Alex cuz he is in Chicago for the summer with Emma), their dog, Daisy, our Aunt Cyndi, and her fiance Jeremy. When we unpacked the car, we got our bathing suits, put on sunscreen, I put my ear plug in, and we went to the dock.
There was a Pontoon and a speed boat parked at the dock and because of how many people we had we took both boats. We got to a little cove and started swimming and after 30 minutes Dad, my brothers, Nicholas and Uncle Andy got on the speedboat and started tubing. When they returned I called out, “Hey, can I tube?”
Uncle Andy and Dad told me to get on the tube and Aunt Cindy decided to also come along. When she was in the boat I gave the thumbs-up and Uncle Andy sped off. I had forgotten how much I love tubing, the wind whipping through my hair and the speed when I hit waves, made me feel like I was flying! Unfortunately for me, at one point all the breaking waves pulled my swim shorts down to my ankles too fast for me to stop it. As if on cue I noticed another boat passing us. To save my dignity, I let go of the tube, but a wave broke on the right side of my head. I immediately felt the water rush into and clog up my ear, despite the plug.
This put a damper (pun intended) on the trip. I got an ear infection and in fact, this last week (the week of June 26th) was the first time that I've been able to hear anything out of my right ear, since the incident. On top of that, over my trip, I, unfortunately, had to break up with my girlfriend Gabby. I'm not going to go into too many details because I still respect her, but basically, it just wasn't working out and it was taking a toll on my mental health.
Both of these situations obviously suck. I mean breaking up with someone over the phone isn't ideal, and I hate that I had to do it, and to quote Dad, “Ear infections are the most uncomfortable (non-life-threatening) illness a person can experience.” While I was definitely a lot less social than I would usually be as a result of these things, I still tried to make an effort to enjoy the trip, and just the act of trying made it a little bit better. Life doesn't wait for you even if you're uncomfortable, so enjoy the good where you can find it!
Have a Greattastic and be safe!
J. Mitchie Ulibarri
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