We didn't have a "six flags day"

So we made it through St Louis and were excited for our first Roller Coaster stop, at Six Flags St Louis, which is actually in Eureka, Missouri, about 15 minutes out of St Louis. We had pre-purchased tickets and a parking pass on line, and as we drove through the parking gate, the attendant told us to "have a six flags day". The first coaster was amazing, front row on the Batman ride, a thrilling, twisting, upside down fast ride that was a blast, that left us both wobbly on our feet as we walked away.

The second coaster was the "Screaming Eagle" ride, kind of an old fashioned, clackety, wood structure roller coaster, lots of fun with its crazy ups and downs. The third coaster was the "Ninja". As we were buckled into the front seats (we alway go to the front car, even if you have to wait a long time with the other front car enthusiasts), Annica told me she had a problem with the Ninga ride at other Six Flags parks, the pads did not hold you in well and you had to hold your head back so it didn't bang around too much.

Sure enough, when the ride ended, Annica said she had banged right on her good ear (she is completely deaf from birth in her left ear), and couldn't hear anything. Great. After walking around a bit, she could hear, but she said it sounded like she had swimmer's ear, all clogged up and it hurt. We sat and rested and decided we would go to the first aid station. After a long walk across the park, we got to the first aid, the paramedic had an ear scope and said there was no bleeding, no obvious redness and a ball of wax in there. We wanted to go to a hospital to have a doctor check it out, so we got directions to St Claire Hospital only about 12 minutes away.

The hospital was brand new, and beautiful, we got checked into the ER right away, they took all the info on their fancy new computers and shuffled us off to a ER room where we promptly waited 2 hours, no exaggeration. Finally, a young male doctor came in, looked in the deaf ear, looked into the right injured ear, then had me look in his scope, and at the very bottom of the ear drum you could see a tiny red dot. He said that was a ruptured ear drum. Not as bad as it sounds, he said they heal by themselves, but he wanted to put Annica on antibiotics, and he said we should see a regular ENT right away. I told him about my cousin Leon, an ENT at Stanford Hospital, actually the head of the ENT department there, and the doctor was willing to call cousin Leon. Fortunately, Leon was home, they did their doctor talk, and Leon recommended against the antibiotics, and based on the ER doctor's description, Leon said we did not need to see an ENT for 2 weeks, because we just needed to let the rupture heal and then see an ENT to be sure it healed okay.

That was a relief, but no more roller coasters the rest of our trip. No loud music, which means Annica will skip the concert she had bought tickets for the weekend after moving into the dorms.

We got in the car after about 4 hour at the hospital, got sandwiches and drove until 1am all the way to Kansas City, checked in and went to sleep.