White hot pain, white hot rock
I've had lots of trouble with my sinuses this year, and these past two weeks it's affected my sleeping. I haven't been sleeping deeply, or well, and during the day I wander about in a constant drowsy stupor. The roof of my mouth aches, my upper teeth ache, and sometimes I have trouble just enunciating.
My regular doc was out of ideas, so he referred me to an ENT, and today I visited said ENT. It began innocently enough. Fill out some forms, nurse escort to sitting room with subscriptions to the usual lousy magazines, doc comes in and makes some small talk while looking in my ear and throat.
And then things took a turn for the...not so good. Doc sticks something long and metallic in my nose to look at my sinuses. Not so comfy. Doc asks me some questions, and decides I need a CAT scan.
I lie on my stomach on a long platform, facing forward as if flying like Superman, and then the platform rises and slowly extends my head into the hole in the center of a giant donut-shaped apparatus. Presumably this is the CAT scan machine. It slowly extends my head into the machine, one centimeter at a time, taking scans of cross-sections of my head. This happens some 27 times, lasting about five minutes, until my neck is aching from craning my head back this whole time.
Back to see the doc and wait for the scans to be developed. When they return, he hangs them up on a light box mounted on the wall, just like in the movies, and we both stare at them. He looks with a diagnostic eye, and I with simple curiosity and, admittedly, a bit of trepidation.
"These sinuses here look normal," he says, pointing at two large dark spots. "As do these." He explains the white and dark spots, what I'm looking at.
"But this," he says with a frown, pointing at a white area on the scan, "looks like a problem."
Oh crap!
"It might be a cyst, but whatever it is, it's swelling and causing pressure which may explain the discomfort in the roof of your mouth. Let's take a look at the roof of your mouth." He puts one of those long circular mirrors on the end of a metal stick, like the ones dentists use, in my mouth.
"Hmmm, yeah, this looks tender. I think what we should do is stick a needle through the roof of your mouth and drain it, send it away for tests."
What?!? An innocent visit to the doc had taken a turn for the horrific, the likes of which hadn't been seen since Janet Leigh got offed in the shower in Psycho. I was too shocked to say anything, and suddenly the doctor had strapped on some gloves and was holding a humongous syringe, 200cc's, the type you stick in a horse, and he was asking me to open my mouth wide.
And then I felt this white hot pain in the roof of my mouth, and then a sudden explosion of pain in my sinuses, like they were being ripped out my nose by a vacuum. My upper teeth felt like they were being forced out of their sockets by some force from within. I nearly choked.
The doc removed the needle. It was half full of a reddish fluid, like blood, but darker. He asked me to open up again and did this again, filling the needle. My eyes were watering from the pain in my sinuses.
And just like that, the doc told me to make an appointment to see him again in 10 days and sent me on my way. My sinuses felt terrible, my mouth tasted of blood, and my nose started running, but despite this I managed to mumble directions to the receptionist to set up a followup. After the joy of this visit, I can hardly wait. Let's hope it isn't a tumor, though the doc suggested it was more likely a cyst. I didn't even know what a cyst was, except that I'd read about cysts the size of watermelons which had been removed from patients in the past. It was all too terrifying, and the rest of the afternoon was a painful blur.
Fortunately, in the evening, I had the White Stripes concert to distract me. Pete, Maren, Molly, and I thought we were going to be early, but the Yeah Yeah Yeahs started exactly on time and were blasting Y Control when we walked in. Karen O is one crazy chick. She sang half the songs with the microphone actually inside her mouth. Their set was short, just over half an hour of crazy punk, and then we had to stand and watch Little Audrey and Betty Boop cartoons while the roadies set up for the Stripes.
A lot of the crowd members were too damn tall. I could barely see the stage. Some girl passed out and security guards carried her out. Just when the crowd was going to lose it, Jack and Meg strolled out on stage. Meg was in a white short-sleeve shirt and white pants, and Jack was wearing a red t-shirt and pants that were split straight down the middle: the left half of the pants were red, the right half black.
They sure love Meg. Who's more beloved--Meg Whitman or Meg White? Pick'em. I would have never predicted that Elephant would sell a gazillion copies, not because it isn't good, but because it seems a little too out there to appeal to the mainstream. What do I know? Jack looked like Gr
My regular doc was out of ideas, so he referred me to an ENT, and today I visited said ENT. It began innocently enough. Fill out some forms, nurse escort to sitting room with subscriptions to the usual lousy magazines, doc comes in and makes some small talk while looking in my ear and throat.
And then things took a turn for the...not so good. Doc sticks something long and metallic in my nose to look at my sinuses. Not so comfy. Doc asks me some questions, and decides I need a CAT scan.
I lie on my stomach on a long platform, facing forward as if flying like Superman, and then the platform rises and slowly extends my head into the hole in the center of a giant donut-shaped apparatus. Presumably this is the CAT scan machine. It slowly extends my head into the machine, one centimeter at a time, taking scans of cross-sections of my head. This happens some 27 times, lasting about five minutes, until my neck is aching from craning my head back this whole time.
Back to see the doc and wait for the scans to be developed. When they return, he hangs them up on a light box mounted on the wall, just like in the movies, and we both stare at them. He looks with a diagnostic eye, and I with simple curiosity and, admittedly, a bit of trepidation.
"These sinuses here look normal," he says, pointing at two large dark spots. "As do these." He explains the white and dark spots, what I'm looking at.
"But this," he says with a frown, pointing at a white area on the scan, "looks like a problem."
Oh crap!
"It might be a cyst, but whatever it is, it's swelling and causing pressure which may explain the discomfort in the roof of your mouth. Let's take a look at the roof of your mouth." He puts one of those long circular mirrors on the end of a metal stick, like the ones dentists use, in my mouth.
"Hmmm, yeah, this looks tender. I think what we should do is stick a needle through the roof of your mouth and drain it, send it away for tests."
What?!? An innocent visit to the doc had taken a turn for the horrific, the likes of which hadn't been seen since Janet Leigh got offed in the shower in Psycho. I was too shocked to say anything, and suddenly the doctor had strapped on some gloves and was holding a humongous syringe, 200cc's, the type you stick in a horse, and he was asking me to open my mouth wide.
And then I felt this white hot pain in the roof of my mouth, and then a sudden explosion of pain in my sinuses, like they were being ripped out my nose by a vacuum. My upper teeth felt like they were being forced out of their sockets by some force from within. I nearly choked.
The doc removed the needle. It was half full of a reddish fluid, like blood, but darker. He asked me to open up again and did this again, filling the needle. My eyes were watering from the pain in my sinuses.
And just like that, the doc told me to make an appointment to see him again in 10 days and sent me on my way. My sinuses felt terrible, my mouth tasted of blood, and my nose started running, but despite this I managed to mumble directions to the receptionist to set up a followup. After the joy of this visit, I can hardly wait. Let's hope it isn't a tumor, though the doc suggested it was more likely a cyst. I didn't even know what a cyst was, except that I'd read about cysts the size of watermelons which had been removed from patients in the past. It was all too terrifying, and the rest of the afternoon was a painful blur.
Fortunately, in the evening, I had the White Stripes concert to distract me. Pete, Maren, Molly, and I thought we were going to be early, but the Yeah Yeah Yeahs started exactly on time and were blasting Y Control when we walked in. Karen O is one crazy chick. She sang half the songs with the microphone actually inside her mouth. Their set was short, just over half an hour of crazy punk, and then we had to stand and watch Little Audrey and Betty Boop cartoons while the roadies set up for the Stripes.
A lot of the crowd members were too damn tall. I could barely see the stage. Some girl passed out and security guards carried her out. Just when the crowd was going to lose it, Jack and Meg strolled out on stage. Meg was in a white short-sleeve shirt and white pants, and Jack was wearing a red t-shirt and pants that were split straight down the middle: the left half of the pants were red, the right half black.
They sure love Meg. Who's more beloved--Meg Whitman or Meg White? Pick'em. I would have never predicted that Elephant would sell a gazillion copies, not because it isn't good, but because it seems a little too out there to appeal to the mainstream. What do I know? Jack looked like Gr