Hear, Nor There. Part II of the earache chronicles...

Well now, how to start? Ok, I’m finally posting some new stuff because the crippling pain of my earache is slowly packing up his belongings in preparation for a long hiatus from tormenting me. BYE BYE MR. EAR W/ PAIN MAN! This being the case I can continue where I left off with out having to rock back and forth like Rainman every other word I type. Here it goes…

So after being weighed in and giving a brief “why I’m here” summary to the nurse she leaves me by myself to wait for the good Doctor. I have to admit, I do like my doctor. He’s a nice bloke and all; but the real reason I like him is because he has the most old school office around! Seriously, I don’t know how he managed to freeze his office in the late 70’s but he done done it! From the time you walk in you get hit with retro nostalgia. What’s weird is that everything is in mint condition. You half expect to walk in and see Jack and Chrissy filling out forms to finally get to the bottom of whether not using a condom on that crazy kooky night they got drunk after finding the missing rent was a mistake. They walk their clipboard up the nurse and WHAT?! Why it’s Mr. Furley walking out of the back restroom with a cup of his semen! All are shocked to see each other and Mr. Furley drops his sample and stands in a judo pose. Cue the laugh track. Yes, this is what my doctor’s office is like.

After a bit of time sitting alone wondering if I could run out to my car carrying the really cool chair in the corner without getting noticed, the doctor walks in. My doctor looks like your typical old guy doctor. He is average height, old man portly (not fat though, just age weighted), healthy head of gray hair, the basics. What is the stand out feature is… HE’S DRESSED RETRO TOO! He sports the chubby “almost” long sideburns, and wears those frames of glasses that has a little too much metal on them and are usually worn at a shooting range. They even have a slight tint to them. The best is his old school doctor’s coat. I wanted to bludgeon him and snatch it off his twitching corpse it was THAT cool. I figured getting my hearing back and loosing the intense pain in my gullet was more important though.
“Hello Damon! How ya feeling today?” As he reads the file
“WELL, I DON’T KNOW IF THEY WROTE IT DOWN THERE OR NOT BUT…”
“Ah, yes yes. I guess you wouldn’t be doing too well or else you wouldn’t be here eh?”
“…” (Insert grimace/grin here)
“Well, lemme get something I like to use to look into ears and we’ll see what’s doin”
It’s at this point it hits me. Should I tell him I had the old man give me a few drips of olive oil in my ear the night before. What if he looks in it and wonders why the hell my ear is so greasy, or what if the oil got into some laceration or touched something sensitive and fucked me all up?! Then I’d look like a fool explaining that “well sir. Olive oil is a well-known home remedy so I had my dad give me a few drips in the ear for the irritation. No, I don’t normally try and get rid of pain with cooking oils, but two people told me it’s what your uh-sposed to do!”

Yeah, I decided unless it came up he didn’t need to know. He starts off by looking into my right ear and just gives a little “hmph” then tells me that it’s fine. He then goes to my left ear and gets a look on his face like I was telling him jokes while having a dried green boogie dangle from my nostril, just getting ready to fly out. He then cups my back jaw line and tells me it’s a bit swollen. I KNEW IT I thought to myself like I was his equal when it came to medical knowledge. He then looks into my ear and tells me “Boy, your canal is highly infected and very swollen. Do you use Q-tips?”
Now I was mortified. Did I really have that much wax, and whatever else, coating up my ear that he actually had to ask if I clean my ears? What a slob I must be…
“Um…yeah actually. I use them a lot. Why…is there some wax and stuff?”
“Oh, no. It’s just that you shouldn’t really use Q-tips, they irritate the ear and a lot of doctors are now telling people not to use them. You must use them too much because you have hardly any wax in your ear and you must have irritated the ear canal. The infection is what’s causing all the discomfort. In the future, if you feel a little discomfort or a slight itch in your ear, just put a couple of drops of baby oil in (hmm, an oil that isn’t found in the kitchen?! Are you nuts?) And when in the shower just tilt your head to let the water run in then tilt your head and let it run out. That should be more than enough”

A lot of useful information right? Well, all I really heard at the time was “your ears are clean”. Don’t worry though. I found if you ask questions like your in disbelief of what he just told you, you can usually get a good recap. “I’m supposed to put WHAT in my ear? Then do what? Hmm, never knew that…”

To top off the spectacular morning I’ve been having I get a semi-check up and learn a couple of other interesting things. Not only have I put on a few lbs, I also have high blood pressure and have to learn to relax a little more and alter my diet so salts and other delicious things aren’t abundant in my meals. Great. I get a prescription for some eardrops and antibiotics. WHAT THE FUCK! Where is my vicadin? Did he not see me rocking back and forth holding my left ear like I was at some fucking roller disco?! I ask if the eardrops or pills are going to take care of the pain, and quickly too. He tells me “it should” and that’s it. Maybe St. Elsewhere wasn’t listening so good. I WAS IN PAIN DAMMIT! “Well, I mean…my ear hurts really bad?”
“Oh, well if starts to get really uncomfortable just take a couple of advil…”
Fucker.

It’s better than nothing I figure so I start my trek to my nearest pharmacy and then it’s off to work. I pull up to the WALGREENS parking lot and I’m dizzy with agony. It’s like walking in a daze as I step into the old people scented pharmacy. Now it is my observation that there are 3 types you’ll find working in most pharmacies, unless your of the upper crust - then your pharmacist is like a family friend or something and pretty normal. The 3 types are: 1) Asians 2) easily annoyed Asians and 3) frumpy white broads who seem really out of place helping sift out your druggins. Luckily for me it was easily annoyed Asian day.

I walk up to the counter and I’m trying not to act like I just got raped with a broom handle covered in broken glass and given a furious reach around by Edward Scissorhands, thus leaving me in unimaginable pain. I tell the little fellow behind the counter that I need my prescription filled. He snatches the paper off the counter, looks at it and then sets it on a shelf by a computer. He then starts his inquisition. “Is this from your doctor” “what’s your date of birth” “is this still your address” “you have the same insurance” “what’s your social security” “do cops let you finish shitting if they bust into your house to arrest you and your in the middle of making boom boom”? All the usual questions, just asked about 3 times each. I’m finally starting to get annoyed and finally look up to give him a scowl. SHAZAM! What fuck was that on his cheek! Feeling my eyes start to dry out from being popped out of socket from what I just saw I quickly look up toward the ceiling lights. After shifting my eyes back and forth in what I thought was a sly fashion I casually lower my gaze again. I carefully sneak peaks at the little piece of heaven that startled me so. On his face I had noticed the slight bit of peach fuzz stubble he was trying to turn into something stylish around his chin and side burns area. But right in the middle of his left cheek in that space in between the chin and sideburns was a round chocolate chip sized mole with black lightning coming out of it! What I thought were bolts of electricity were actually just really long coarse black hairs growing out of the mole. I’d say there were about 6-7 hairs of different coarseness and thickness and all were 5-6 inches in length! What gives? I just wanted to twirl my finger around all the hair and PULL! Maybe his head was like a party popper and after I pulled the bunch of hairs out confetti and streamers would come out of his eyes and fill the sky with fun only measured in a parade at Disneyland. Turns out I was in such an intense daydream I didn’t realized I had agreed to comeback in a half hour when my druggins would be filled. What the hell was I supposed to do for a half hour?

I end up going to the bank to make a deposit and after that I would go reserve my copy of the Sony PSP. The bank was a pretty easygoing chore and I finished that errand pretty quick. The game store was another story. I will save that tale for another day.

As I get back to the guy with the body snatcher coming out of his cheek, I get my drugs. He gives me a bottle of antibiotics and then he gives me a little bottle which it turns out are the eardrops. He tells me to give about 5 drips twice a day and to put some cotton in my ear after the drops to keep them in. I’m all about it and I quickly devour a pill and spin the cap off the eardrops wildly. I wants me some relief! I ask if he as a cotton ball. He looks at me like he just burped up a fart, “You want cotton ball?” “Yes please, I only need one for the drops. I have to go to work after this so I won’t be able to stop off”
He still looks puzzled and then comes from behind the counter and walks to a shelf. He then comes over to me with a pillow-sized bag of cotton balls?
“Oh, sorry. I don’t need all those. I have plenty at home, I just need one for now”
“We don’t have any. Sorry”
Now is it just me, but don’t they put cotton in the bottles and shit! I KNOW they had one. I just grind my teeth, smile and walk to my car.

I finally start my trek to work and don’t get there until 12pm. I had to take a half-day AND catch up on a shit load of work because I was going to be on VACATION for the next few days! VACATION! Can you believe that shit!? Not only do I have NO sleep in me, I also have an earache AND now I have to come in for a half day THE NEXT DAY because I have to catch up on work. I swear there is some old gypsy lady out there just looking into her crystal ball and cackling her head off.




DJB