Clean Bill O' Health

With my excruciating tongue sore and ear infection incident like, soooo last week, I tied up the loose ends today with an early morning visit to the throat, nose and ear specialist. Given the number of questions I was peppered with and various examinations I was subjected to, this surely ranked among the most expedient doctor visits in my life.

Dr. W. was nice enough, but he caught me off guard with his blunt, rapid fire questioning. What brings you here? What did your doctor say? It still hurts? It feels tight? How do you mean? How do you feel now? Were you ill before? Were you just worried... about cancer?

Yes, I was at a bit of a loss at the third degree but that last question I'll revisit in just a moment.

I couldn't help but notice the curly sticking out of Dr. W.'s left nostril but thought little of it. If you only knew the epic gardening battles I wage with my own nasal follicles. He wore a vision headset, pulled up on his forehead, but never used it. If it was darker and he wasn't in fact a slight Chinese man with protruding nose hairs, I might have mistken him for Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell. Maybe.

On the subject of nostrils, the good doctor stuck a probe up both of mine, prodding me to say "Eeeeee" at one point to, I assume, prevent me from spasmodically jerking away as he pushed that probe up, up and up into my head. He warned me, in typical understated doctor-speak, that it would feel a bit uncomfortable. Well it feels like a probe is going up through your nose, blazing a miniature trail of fire along the way. The slight burning, probe going through your brain sensation was not very pleasant.

He also did the old reliable trick of sticking a bright light into my ear canals. More questions. Did your doctor look into yours ears? What did he find? Do you think there's fluid in your ear? In the parlance of the Internet: WTF, sir. WTF? If you're going to ask me something I can't possibly answer with any reliable certainty... and you're seconds away from looking into my ears to find out anyway... does the question need to be asked?

Thankfully, Dr. W.'s trek through my orifices barely lasted a few minutes. He didn't find anything out of the ordinary and seemed to make me feel a bit silly for visiting him in the first place. That's when he asked if I was worried about a deeper problem, like possibly having cancer. With my usual straight face, I just told him I wanted to make sure whatever it was I had last week had completely cleared up. Is that so wrong, people?

Because I had developed a second, lesser sore on the left underside of my tongue, Dr. W. merely suggested that these sores can sometimes impact to a degree that affects the inner ear... or something like that. As I had mentioned earlier, the entire appointment felt like it had ended before it had really began. Lickity split.

Doctors!