Immaculate Ears

A quick search on Google told me I must have an intestinal flu. Not that I needed Google to tell me that, but I think I've become dependent on searching for something on Google daily.

Dan asked if I wanted to go to the hospital, as if he was asking me to a movie. "Ooooh, yeah!" I said, still managing to be sarcastic through my stomach cramps. I think it's his way of asking if I'm alright. At least I broke him of his Gatorade-and-fever questioning from when we were first married. Obviously his mother immediately turned to the magical sports drink and a thermometer when he was sick as a child.

The last time I went to the doctor, I was so aggravated. I don't have a family doctor only because I haven't needed one in a long time. When I had a pain in my jaw and ear last year, I thought maybe I had an ear infection. So I looked up the closest doctor and made an appointment. His office was in a house (similar, weirdly, to my own). I was happily called into the examining room quickly only to find myself sitting on a tiny wooden chair in a small room that I could tell, from my own house layout, was a bedroom in past years. I was surrounded by antique medical objects. Now, I actually love antiques and was quite amused for a few minutes as I looked at the examining table, medicine bottles, and scales. But then as I waited and waited, I realized that my discomfort was from sitting on the newest, most unfortable seat in the room. I waited and waited on my tiny seat, my arms by my stomach, edged out by an antique medicine cabinet and the doorway.

Finally, when the doctor came in after having a loud and rather casual conversation for a half-hour in the room across the hall, he found me playing a game on my cell phone.

"What are you doing there?" he asked. He looked like Bill Nye, the Science Guy.
"Playing a game," I said irritably. I thought about saying how I had an infant at home and that I didn't have time to wait, but I didn't.
"They have games on phones now? What will they think of next?"

Now I'm not that technically advanced, but I had a cell phone (albeit a BAG phone) in 1995. I would think he would have encountered a phone with a game on it at, say, a medical convention.

His examination took about 2 minutes. "Aha!" he screamed. "I have found your problem." He started laughing.

I waited for him to explain. That's usually what happens when you pay someone to explain. "What?" I finally asked.

"Do you know why we humans have ear wax?" Jesus. Maybe he WAS Bill Nye.

I'll save you the exact explanation, but let's say that I thought I was in Ear Function 101--complete with diagrams that he took from the University of Wherever. I'm not kidding. "Come with me!" he said, and I reluctantly followed him across the hall to his office and he made me look at an antique huge diagram of the human BODY. Then I had to listen to how the building that contained those posters was being demolished and that he was able to save them from anniliation.

"Tell your mother your ears are too clean!" was his diagnosis.
"What?" I said, in a daze.
"Your ears are too clean and you don't have any ear wax. We have ear wax for a reason. You must be a cronic user of Q-Tips. They're not made to go in ears."
"Then why do they make them?" (I HAD to ask.)
"Blah, blah, blah" is what I heard as he explained the marketing campaign of Q-Tips and various products throughout history. (I had to ask?)

After my lecture, he realized that I suffered from infertility and was intrigued and said that he'd love to figure out my problem. His enthusiasm freaked me out. That's when I bolted for the door.

Before I left, he actually came out to the reception area (aka living room) and managed one last statement: "You live so close--next time, walk." (I have immaculate ears AND I'm lazy.)

I will suffer gladly at home on my couch or for hours in an ER before I'd ever go there again.