Doh! moments

My wife and her sister--at whose Scottsdale residence we are ensconced--have been trading sore throats. They have now included me in the circle. For me, the sore throat  has manifested as secondary to otitis media. The main symptom is the throat pain that one gets upon swallowing or yawning, the result of which ordinarily would be an equalization of pressure between the middle (i.e., media) ear and the throat. In this case the pressure equalization is less than wholly successful because the eustachian tube that connects the middle ear with the throat--the apparent major function of which is to equalize said pressure--is plugged with mucous.  I plugged mine as a result of playing my trumpet vigorously with a music colleague from our jam group in Cache Valley who also happens, through a variety of personal circumstances, to be spending a portion of his winter in Scottsdale. The session was a good time in which I learned that I am nowhere really very far along the comeback trail, except at the beginning, but also that whatever ear I have left has not deserted me along the way.  I was able to play about 20 minutes or so before my lips fell into the mouthpiece. The neuropathy responsible for this has not yet receded. But having brought no music with me I had to do everything by ear. It was a useful exercise and I must do more of it, instead of the insidious practice of reading the chord changes from a lead sheet all the time.


In any case, the point of today's post is that I had to medicate yesterday with aspirin against the vicious pain produced by swallowing and I used the Canadian aspirins I have with the few grains of codeine in them. (They are essentially like a Tylenol 3.)  Well, these pills also contain a slug of caffeine contra the usual narcosis of the codeine. This is a principal reason I am typing this at 5:30 a.m. Pop! After a fabulous 4-5 hours of very deep and restorative sleep, I awakened, not to return to Morpheus. However, the usual edema seems lessened and I feel some itch in the balls and arches of my feet. I take that to mean that healing of the neuropathy continues apace, since itch is on the correct side of the pain continuum.  My joints feel considerably better this morning, and I am going to either continue the aspirin course or switch over to some Aleve, because the anti-inflammatory effects of these NSAIDs may also contribute to lowering the amount of edema produced by the neuropathy. Anything to move this process along.