Pressure

I have always had ear problems. I had tubes twice growing up and if I get a cold it moves right to my ears. Well of course I fly a lot of work so ear issues and flying don't mix well.
Monday evening I left for work in AZ. At work Monday I noticed the cough, the sore throat the start of "somethings not right."
All six of us board the plane and spent the next 3 hours playing a board game and having a good time. This is typical for a "before" the trip behavior.
Sure enough descending into Phoenix there was more pressure than usual.
As the week went on it got worse, even the AZ sun didn't help. It was the long days of meetings and then dinners from 7-9pm that kept me form getting the rest I wanted. And the cotton candy I had for dessert last night didn't help me get to sleep very fast...

So today we take off, all of us are exhausted, meetings, long days, not being in our own bed, mt bike adventure 18 miles yesterday, you get the picture. So we hardly talk for the almost three hours to Portland where we drop one of the gals off. We hit the 20,000 ft mark on the decent and I cringe in pain. My ears have so much pressure that they feel like the could burst and they have many times so I am just hoping it does not happen on this trip. for the next 10 min, it seemed way longer, I had my fingers in my ears trying anything to stop the pain. Swallowing does not work, gum does not work, pretty much I have tried everything at one time or another. Once we get below 10,000 ft it starts to feel better but now I'm left with ear drainage if I turn my head with my ear pointing down. So gross I know.
I am thinking about having to descend again into Everett. One of the pilots, Mike, comes back to see if we need anything and I say "can we not fly above 10,000 ft it's killing my ears!" We all laugh and he says "Oh you have ear problems? No problems I can adjust the cabin pressure. Happens to me all the time when I'm sick." Thank the Lord! I was thinking of driving from Portland to Bellevue to avoid the pain. So it all worked out. I had hardly any pressure landing. If only I could fly private all the time. I have a feeling that a commercial pilot would not let me tell him to adjust the cabin pressure!