Recycling is a good thing

Once again, I'm recycling an email sent to my dear eldest sibling... again, this is how it all started (blogging). I was writing my crazy rambling thoughts to her and not the other siblings, who started to feel left out. The blog thing keeps everyone in the loop as to how crazy I really am.

Dear Jeanette,
Ok as promised, here is yet another fun filled experience at the Doctor’s office. Sort of like an amusement park with wild rides & games, but not really.

It was my trial day at our outer office to see if I would like it and could make my decision based on that, which to be honest, my mind was made up when I realized 20min commute vs. 1 hour….. the math says it all. However, on a day where anyone would want to make a good impression with their potential new co-workers, I had an abscess that went bad. Similar to a “drug deal gone bad” but without all the shooting and DEA officers in full swat gear barreling at you with tazers. To be honest though, if you ever had an abscess gone bad, DEA officers pinning you to the ground with their knees and shooting you full of electricity would have been a welcome relief from the pain & discomfort of an abscess. When I say it went bad, it went beyond one tooth to the whole left side of my face, into my sinus cavity and pressing up against my nose, and inflated the left side of my face like I had wads and wads of cotton, or a whole roll of bath tissue stuck in there. It was extremely painful and I couldn’t take enough ibuprofen without the threat of dialysis. Then there was the whole appearance thing…. I had to try & style my hair to cover the alien growing in my mouth and working it’s way to my brain for the final take over. My soon to be, new co-workers were very nice though and didn’t say anything like “Holy crap, what’s wrong with your face?”.

I managed to get through the day and decided it was time to seek medical assistance. Some might say that I should have gone at the very first sign of an abscess and they have, but let me explain. I thought the not so little bugger was going away what with the baking soda rinses, and bacteria killing mouthwash treatments, but I woke up to find the bacteria were merely resting for the ultimate take over. While I dozed, they got busy and I woke up with the whole swollen face thing. I went the local Medi Care office as they have something of a file on me and don’t require an appointment which was clearly evident when I walked in the place and couldn’t find a seat. So I checked in and settled down to watch some TV. When the receptionist called me over, I thought I must be a pretty big deal to get in before everyone else, but NO, she just wanted to verify my insurance information. When I asked her how long the wait was she told me about 1 ½ hours!! I was going to leave, but the pain kept me there. So I sat back down and decided I’ll just relax and watch some TV. There was a lady sitting with her husband, boyfriend, partner, whatever, who I believe had some nasty airborne disease that we thought we eradicated years ago, but not so much, because she sounded HORRIBLE!! Great, I come here with an abscess and leave with typhoid or TB. Sharing is caring. If the DR. came out and called my name, I had already planned on insisting they take her first, or better yet, let’s dial 911 and get this poor soul to the ER – than we can start the process of sealing off the building and contacting the CDC to come in to quarantine us all. Finally, after about an 1 ½ hours…by the way, that receptionist is good, they called my name. I went into the exam room sat up on the crinkly paper stuff (I swear one of these days I’m just going to doodle all over it) and waited, and waited, and waited…. Started playing with the instruments and thought briefly about lying back and taking a quick nap. About ½ hour later, the Dr. came in… he could have been a mechanic at this point – anything, just get rid of it and let me go home before I gnaw my own arm off out of hunger. The usual “So, what brings you here today?”. Times like these I’d love to mess around and just say, I have a hemorrhoid…. Duh. I explained, “I haf an infecsion im my mouf”. He being a Doctor of Internal Medicine with a degree from some Medical School and all that neat stuff Dr's have, wisely said, “why yes, I can see that.” Hey, how bout you can hear it too? Picture this though…he’s standing across the room from me like he was afraid to get to close. He’s probably thinking, the thing im my mouf is going to blow any minute spewing abcessesy liquid all over his sparkly white lab coat and name tag. Then I’m sure the Dr. in him kicked in and being I waited out in the waiting room with Whooping cough lady for an hour and half, he probably should take a look at the beast. So he meanders over to the extreme left side of the exam table and grabs the little flashlighty thing on the wall (I was playing with that before he came in) and asks me to open up – standing back as far as he possible could while pointing the light in the general direction of my face….”hmmm yes, it’s an abscess”…than scurries back over to the “safe” side of the room and grabs his prescription pad probably thinking he can use it as a shield if Mt. Saint Abscess erupts. He writes me the strongest prescription of antibiotic I have ever had….to be frank I didn’t know they came in doses that strong and warned me several times to eat before taking. Great, I can’t eat right now, so I’ll have to drive to Friendly’s and bulk up on a Fribble. I think he did that to prevent me from having to come back at all because I apparently frightened him. Boy, what was he like as an intern? Big baby. I was probably in there for all about 7 minutes and couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there and away from Lung Flung lady, who was in the exam room next to mine spreading what ever airborne illness she had.

The end of the story is…the abscess is gone. I need to make an appointment for the dentist, but I really don’t want to. I’m thinking of moving to a deserted Island where I could say, I can’t go to the Dentist because there aren’t any. So there. But then again, who would I say anything to being it is a deserted Island? Huh HA, I don’t have to answer to anyone! Unless of course I have a volley ball with a face drawn on it and a tuff of hair poking out the top and it was my bestest friend in the whole world…quick, what movie was that?

Love,Mary