Doctor, Doctor

I just got back from my umpteenth visit to the doctor in the last two years. This time around I came down with a cold, the last weekend in May. Figuring it was just a head cold, I didn't really do anything about it (except empty an entire large box of Kleenex in one day that would normally take me a year to finish). After 5 days it decided to up the ante and move into my left ear. On the 6th day, feeling quite off-balance, I had to fore-go trying to teach elementary school classes with a decidedly reduced sense of balance, meaning I had to tell my supervisory office I wouldn't be going to school. That's when the spate of doctor visits started. The first visit was "in, yep, yep, yep, here's your prescription, go next door and fill it, you're done." I took the first round of medicine on a nearly empty stomach the next morning, to which I attest a very "shroomy" feeling all morning, causing me to leave school early. Of course my supervisory office found out, and one of my supervisors insisted on taking back to the doctor to get tested for influenza, just to be sure. This, combined with today's experience (Day 10) at the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor, gave me first-hand insight into what it would have felt like for the ancient Egyptians to have their brains pulled out of their nose, had they been alive while it was happening.

First, let's review the influenza test. The doctor basically took a pipe cleaner and shoved it into my nose as far as he could, swabbed around a bit, then pulled it back out and gave it to a nurse who did something with it at a counter in the same room. My eyes were totally teared over after this fabulously comfortable procedure and I was coughing a bit. I went and blew my nose in the tissue they gave me, and the doctor kept asking me, "Are you OK? Are you OK?" like my reaction was unusual for him. I don't know how most of his patients feel about having pipe cleaners shoved up their noses. Maybe it's something you get used to. Maybe this is the new-aged way to test for the flu, but the procedure completely surprised me.

Yeah, anyway, so that was lovely. They had me go sit in the hallway until the test was finished, which in the end was basically a influenza nose pregnancy test. When I went back into the doctor's room, my supervisor took one look at the white stick in the doctor's hand, and at the same time as the doctor, said, "It's negative." I looked at the white stick and.....saw a white stick. What?!? The doctor had me look closer, and in the middle of the stick, I saw a C, B and A above a slightly depressed area. When I looked even closer (at this point I should have been able to see the particles that created life in the universe), I could see a vertical, gray line under the "C." This apparently meant I didn't have the flu. Had the gray line fallen under the B or A, I would have had one or the other type of flu. But, nada, so they handed me another bill and I was out the door.....again. Thanks for the memories and the pipe cleaner up the nose. Adios.

This morning, my supervisor called my junior high school and told the Vice Principal he was worried about my ear being stuffy and a bit painful sometimes. (It was very nice of him to be concerned, but by this point, it really was getting better and didn't really think another trip to the doctor was necessary. But, who am I to argue with authority (ha ha).) So the Vice Principal told the head English teacher, who then told me in the teachers' room during an in between-class-break. And now the entire teaching staff of the school knows about my appointment for the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor in the afternoon. Ah well. At least they won't question why I'm leaving school early again! :-) One of the Math teachers piped in at this point and told me that he doesn't recommend a particular Ear, Nose and Throat clinic he went to in his town once, because after his visit, he was in "bad condition." I'll give you one guess as to which clinic I was to visit.

So, my supervisor took me to this E, N, T clinic. I'm already tired of going to doctors offices, and I'm already imagining what Frankenstein-esque thing they pulled on the Math teacher. I go into the room, where I have to sit in what looks like a dentist's office chair, in front of a doctor wearing strange glasses, and one of those headbands with the large, silver, metal disc in the middle. The first thing he and his grannie assistants do, is put me in a phone booth-sized room and give me a hearing test......this is to determine the level of stuffiness? I have a cold and my ear feels clogged up, although not quite as much as it did when it started. Just take a look in my ear, yeah? If you see gunk, give me drops to help dissolve it. If there's an infection, give me antibiotics. Okay, well I'm not a doctor, so whatever you think is best there, medical folk.

After the slightly strange hearing test, during which I'm quite sure all the staff established serious doubt as to the level of my intelligence, I went back into the doctor's room. There was nothing abnormal about the hearing test, so after doing the 'look-into-my-ear' I would have thought would have initially established at least a preliminary understanding of my ear problem, the doctor decided to turn me into some sort of circus experiment. I understood that he wanted to test the airflow between my nose and ear, which made sense. The manner in which he did so, did not. He had me stick one end of a maybe 2-foot, black rubber hose into my left ear. He stuck the other end into his left ear. He then proceeded to stick a lot of alien-looking, long metal things into my nose. They all went so far in I was sure he was just playing around, wanting to see where the tunnel led if he stuck the pipe in 'this' far and turned 'this' way. After he was done playing 'chutes and ladders' with my nasal and respiratory cavities, he asked me, "So, how does your ear feel now?" I literally replied, "Well, I can't really answer that, but my nose hurts now." At this point I think he did another normal surveillance of my left ear cavity, then asked again, "How does your ear feel?" Honestly doc, about the same. Everyone seemed perplexed, so they sent me over to some ventilation-looking machine where you stick plastic prongs up your nose and breathe in vapors for 3 minutes, then go outside to the reception and collect your bill. My supervisor asked, "So, does she need medicine?" The receptionist said no at first. But then she was reminded that I still have a bit of a cough, and a stuffy nose (that I would have thought the doctor would have easily assessed with all the stuff he crammed up there). So she asked,"You have a cold? You are taking medicine now? But the medicine is finished tomorrow? Do you want more medicine?"

Me: NO.

Receptionist: OK! You're done.

I still have no words to properly describe today's visit. But I tell you what, this latest round of visits to the doctor are definitely giving me motivation to get healthy again ASAP!