"I am anonymous in this world, a variable...X...in this equation; Unknown, I am...the X Faktor."

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

The Specialist

My wonderful, and amazing, woman passed along the word from her Dr. Dad strongly suggesting that I see a certain ear, nose, throat specialist soon.  I took the word, and made the appointment (last week) for today at 11:20am.  It was only about 5 minutes away, and when we got there I found myself sitting in a lobby full of people over 50.  Felt right at home.

I was finally called in "early" around 12pm, and proceeded through the short hall on the left then thru the door on the right finally to find myself resting in a full-support chair in the middle of the room.  Sitting there, I thought that it was one of those restraining chairs that I'd eventually find myself strapped into.  It honestly reminded me of the game F.E.A.R.

A young doc comes in and says some muffled words to me as I look at him blankly, wondering when mom will tell him I'm practically deaf.  After he checks my...ear, nose, and throat, he says some words to mom and walks out.

[Side Note] - People find that when they talk to me, I am not looking at their eyes, but their lips in hopes of catching a spit of what they just said.

I look over at mom and ask her if anything good happened, and I was complimented with a, "Yes" and said that they (two docs) were going to come back in and clean my ears out then eventually check my hearing, and prescribe meds and whatnot. "Okay" is all I can really utter.

Next, an older more experienced-looking doctor enters, with him following is the young doc and a nurse.  It's the doc I came to see.  He does the same thing and starts muffling to me as if I don't have a problem and I can actually hear him.  He speaks up and asks me what I can hear, and I tell him I can hear constant ringing and my heartbeat beating like a drum, with pressure...like my ears will explode because of my heartbeat.  They then proceed to analyze my ears, prodding me with long skinny instruments, and start cleaning them.  Painful, yes, but I wonder what it may have felt like had I not decided to pop a Tylenol w/Codene before my appointment?

Funny, because this morning I was feeling good enough to go off the pain meds, but realized I was going to the doc and they may poke around in there so I popped one around 11, and It's a good thing I wasn't called in till noon so that the pain meds could work by then.

That's a US quarter leaning against the bottle

The doc gave us three 1.5mL bottles of CIPRO DEX ear drops to take home.  They're worth $100 per miniscule bottle.  He said I have to take 3 drops in each ear, 3 times daily for 7 days.  Then he prescribed two others, a by-mouth CIPRO pill and a larger pill that requires I avoid sunlight.  The CIPRO pills I take gradually less each day or so, starting with 3 as a first dosage today.  The big pill that tells me to avoid sunlight, is a steroid apparently. Take with lots of water.

So I have another appointment, 50% off as requested by the doc, on my wonderful, and amazing, woman's birthday,at 920am.  Oh well.

Day 14

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