Two weeks ago, I had this nasty ear infection. The doctor treating me said she wanted me to check with her again on a bi-monthly basis, because the left side of my nose cannals was too small or something like that. When I told her that I was going to Japan in 3 months and probably couldn’t commit to any long term treatments, she freaked out.

– You can’t travel by air! Your eardrums will rupture! We need to do something about it before going!
– But the trip is three months away…
– Doesn’t matter, you can’t fly in this condition. — she was adamant.

And then, just after leaving her office, I remembered that I was going to take a flight much earlier, for the Brazilian Congress for Bioinspired Computing just two weeks later.

Uh Oh.

While I made a mental note to visit her again before the trip, I completely forgot about that. I was feeling much better by the end of the first week of treatment. I just remembered the punctured eardrum threats the day of my trip.

Oh man, I was swallowing and moving my jaw like crazy as the plane started to taxi out, mildly amazed at the possibility of rivers of blood suddenly coming out of my ears. My throat was DRY, and the plane hadn’t even begun the take off yet.

As you can guess, nothing happened. I after all that exercise, I probably had the best pressurized ears of the whole cabin.

Other than this scare, the flight was one of my most enjoyable domestic flight ever. I used Azul Airlines which, surprisingly, does not have an English website (shame on them!). If you can navigate the Portuguese website, I recommend it.