Aw, Shucks

Tomorrow morning I go to the doctor’s office for what I’m expecting to be diagnosed as an ear infection. This will be my second trip to a doctor’s office in less than a week for the second of two ear problems.

Sometimes I wish I got head colds like everyone else.

I understand that illness isn’t exactly the best topic to write about on a blog that’s just two posts old–divulging medical history is oddly forthcoming for someone you’ve just started reading and with whom you aren’t terribly well acquainted–but really, we’re all friends here. And if I truly were some sort of lunatic, I’d probably make more tpyos.

I have a history of trips to the doctor’s office for problems beyond coughing and sneezing, although I’ve had my fair share of office visits for both of those. No, like most things in my life, I try to be original. I try to avoid the norm.

Like when I broke my arm. I was two years old and had just received a small bicycle-type thing from my grandparents. It had rainbow tassels hanging off of its neon yellow handlebars and four big blue wheels. By sitting on it and pushing along the ground with my tiny, tiny feet, I could maneuver my way around the carpeted living room and crash into the plastic gate that kept me from falling down the stairs. One evening, when my mother was on the phone and I was left to fend for myself in front of the third repeat of Sesame Street that day, I got the urge to better myself as a human being by trying something new. As hang gliding or purchasing a fondue set were beyond my means, I somehow got it into my tiny, tiny head that riding the bicycle-type thing on the living room couch would be an admirable step towards personal growth and could possibly result in a book and lecture tour. So I hoisted the bicycle-type thing up onto the couch and hopped on. Unfortunately, in typical two-year-old fashion, I hadn’t factored a dismount into my plan, so when I reached the end of the couch, the bicycle-type thing and I fell to the floor, and I broke my tiny, tiny left arm.

I toddled into the kitchen, mumbling and crying, since at two, I was unable to say, “Fuck! This really fuckin’ hurts! I think I broke my fuckin’ arm! What a bad fuckin’ idea! Ow!” Despite my incoherence, my mother figured something was amiss, so she handed my rag doll to me on my left side. I reached across with my right hand to grab it while my left arm dangled like so much hanging deli meat. Certainly a trip to the hospital was in order.

Two casts and six weeks later, my arm was as good as new. And I can safely say that mine was the only arm that damnable bicycle-type thing ever broke: my father left it outside from that point on–a death knell for all things metal and corrosive–and in time it rusted. I have yet to rust, so it would appear as though I have won.

Shortly after this ordeal, I almost swallowed a marble, but there’s not much to that story beyond my almost swallowing a marble. It’s not my most interesting story.

I apologize that I cannot regale you with tales of punctured eardrums, the dreaded ear tubes, or even earwigs… but earwax!–sit back, o fortunate ones. Sit back.

For the last six years, earwax build-up has been one of the more formidable banes of my existence. I will wake up in the morning and discover that I’ve lost up to ninety percent of my hearing in what is usually my right ear. The first two or three times this happened, I expected to make an appointment with my physician and be done with it. But when my doctor broke the instrument with which he planned on extracting the wax, shrugged, and demanded a copayment, I quickly learned that this condition requires a journey to the ear, nose, and throat doctor, a man who presumably spends a third of his life in the ear canal.

The process is simple and even fun. Using a metal device similar to a ray gun, the doctor shoots a stream of warm water into my ear to dislodge the waxy menace. A quick peek into the cup that collects the runoff reveals the culprit: a black, ceruminous plug. Lesser forms are easily removed from ears using a Q-tip and some elbow grease; this abomination is capable of chuckling wickedly and does so whenever it pleases.

Like most battles between Good and Evil, this struggle is an ongoing one. I pray that it all ends soon.

I routinely get ingrown toenails, but they aren’t funny as much as they are painful. Treatment involves clipping, wrenching, bleeding, and a podiatrist.

There are more–perhaps better–stories to share, but I suppose I’ll save them for some other time. If I use up all of my ammunition so quickly, entries will be few and far between, and that’s a situation from which no one emerges the victor.

Carry on.