Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The Fen or the Dingo Ate My Lozenge

Lucky me. I have a draining, stented left ear. (Mazel tov, honey!) The right one. That’s another story. After redraining my right ear, my ENT saw that my right eardrum had become swollen since our last visit. This should not be. He poked at it a few more times hoping he’d find room for a stent. No dice. So no stent for right ear. But I do get antibiotic drops to use for the next two weeks to see if the swelling has gone down (which he likely made worse by poking around the ear drum around some more). If it hasn’t, another Cat Scan for you, baby blue.

So I’m still pretty damned deaf. (I know, I know, I have to chill about the left ear and let the sucker drain.) Kristen (the best therapist in the world) will be arriving momentarily. If I can actually hear the session without too much trouble, I will be pleased.

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Two hours later… “pleased” is too strong a word. Two words would work much better: barely improved. I still felt like a tadpole. Fuck. This has already gotten old. (For all of us, I know.) But I actually heard most of what was said to me. That is an improvement. That I heard it from beneath surface of a fen…that’s where the “barely” comes in. Damnit.

As we all know, when we can’t hear, our own body sounds seem much louder than for those who live above the fen who usually don’t hear your body sounds at all. (No I’m not talking about farts here…) Right now, I’m referring to breathing and the mucous that is settling on my throat and probably my vocal chords too. I heard what I think is a slight raggedness in my breath. That frightens me. I associate this sort of raggedness with a bug that has or is settling in my lungs. Now, if I could hear like a healthy human being, I don’t think I’d hear a thing. But I‘m not, and I heard it, however faintly.

I get my poor husband who’s on a conference call to help strap me into The Vest, the thing that while in action looks like a “Flotation Device” in all its flotation-ness and beats the crap out of my lungs- front, sides, and back. Clever bugger, isn’t it? We get me in my harness and twenty minutes later, Aretha in Paris (of which I listened about halfway through last night) and I are done almost simultaneously. Crap is moving. No more raggedness. Fear subsides. Lovin’ on Aretha. (This album gets a bad rap. Totally undeserved. I think it’s pretty kickass.)

Time for my afternoon nap. (Yes I take a nap every afternoon.) Still coughing up stuff. (This I really do have to get out or else I can get myself into real trouble.) Given my new lease on life (oxycodone) I’m really not in the mood to drop dead of a cold. (And boys and girls, I only take it when I need it. Haven’t needed one for the past few days.) So now, kids, oxycodone, is not my new favorite candy. Cepacol lozenges were for a awhile. (But they taste something awful, but they, unfortunately, work. I still take them when desperately needed.)

Isn’t the word “lozenge” just great? Lozenge. It’s so unusual to find a word in English you can really sink your teeth into. Lozenge. It’s good. I’m reading a little of my new Grant bio (not Cary, though that would work just fine), before I tank. (I think I’m in love. First it was Charles II. You woman-loving rascal, you. But now, what about my Ulysses??? The greatest general in the world. And such a nice boy.) Lozenge. Isn't it yummy?

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