I had to visit the emergency room yet again last night. I have a recurring cyst right in front of my left ear. Last night, after it has been swelling for the last five days or so, I decided that it was time to visit the doctor to see if I could get it taken care of. The triage nurse asked me why I didn't take care of it Friday morning while I was there getting my leg looked at. I told her at the time, I was more concerned about my leg and the fact of being able to walk and such. It seemed more important at the time, you know?
Anyways, they take me back and grab my vitals and I sit in the waiting room for about twenty minutes tops. The doctor comes in and asks what is going on and between my wife and I, we were able to give him a pretty detailed account of what has been going on with my ears for about the last decade. It seems funny to most people because you would think that one surgery would take care of the problem, but no sir, this thing has been around since before I turned 18. It has been a huge pain in my ass and I am getting sick and tired of having to go under the knife to get it taken care of. Well, after he explained about the numbing medicine and the possibility of it not working, we decided to go ahead with the lancing procedure. I asked him to give me a stronger dose of the numbing medicine because the simple numbing medicine that they give me just wasn't enough to dull the pain. He was nice enough to get me a stronger form and man it worked a lot better than the other stuff. He was even nice enough to explain to me that it probably wouldn't work because the cyst is actually an infection of sorts and the medicine usually doesn't have much effect. It was nice knowing the reason why it might not work instead of the doctor just telling me to get over it and not to worry about it.
It was shortly after that, that he and his assistant came in to commence the procedure. My face went numb pretty much instantly after he administered the numbing medicine and I didn't really feel much of anything until after he sliced down the scar on my face to open it up. He had to squeeze a bunch of pus out of it and then proceeded to pack the area with this iodine gauze that is supposed to help with the infection. Needless to say, I was near tears because it isn't very comfortable when I have this done. All I feel is this massive pressure against my head and it leaves me with these horrible headaches. Two vicodan pills later and it starts to go numb again. I had about an 8 day beard that I needed to shave, which I probably should have shaved prior to going to the emergency room. I learned that the hard way because I went home right afterwards and shaved my face.
It was really weird though because I am used to going to the pharmacy and then picking up my medicine that they prescribed to me in the emergency room. Since we have been gone they have changed a lot of things that go on in the hospital. Now, instead of going down to the pharmacy, they have you sign the discharge paperwork and then sit you in this little waiting area until the pharmacy brings up the medication. It's not something we are used to, but we made due and then my wife had to help me get back to the van so that she could take me home. Hell, I had to have her show the nurse how to properly tape the gauze to my ear because my wife has found a nice easy way to do it that makes it so the tape doesn't hurt when she pulls it off. They even gave me a referral to the ENT clinic in the hospital so that I can talk to the specialist about getting the actual surgery done.
Being in transit really doesn't help my situation because I have no one to answer to while I am on leave. The good thing is is that the house is just down the road from the hospital, so nobody has to wait too terribly long while we drive to the ER. It is about a five minute drive total. I'm not a huge fan of narcotic pain medication because I don't like being loopy and I don't like being in front of the children while I am loopy. I like the children to not see me that way because when I am sober, I make better decisions. I like it that way and I really don't want to give them a bad example to follow.
So today I have pretty much done nothing except play on Facebook because I took some of the narcotics this morning to help with the pain and I have been in bed away from the children. Don't worry because there has been someone to look after the kids even when my wife left to go do some more laundry. I'm even on the verge of taking a little nap because now all of a sudden my eyelids are getting droopy and I'm feeling really tired. I feel bad because my wife is the one that told me to get back in bed. I hate not being able to help her do anything when I feel this bad. Maybe I will take some time when I feel better to let her relax and do some work while she sits and does nothing. That would make me feel better too. It's my way of repaying her.
Sorry that this edition was so somber and littered with my rant about going to see the emergency room doctors yet again. The next edition that comes will be a lot happier.
Later Daze
Wickid
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