The Sith take revenge on my left ear...

Apparently, I keep my sense of humor in my left ear. This is why I’m so pissy and un-funny when my allergies are really bad and I have Darth Vader Ear (you know what I’m talking about – Darth Vader Ear is where you can hear yourself breathing in your ear even though you know that whatever physiological road map inside your body that connects your ear to your lung has to be really long and twisty and so you can’t possibly figure out how it’s THAT LOUD). Darth Vader Ear doubles as my funny-bone inhibitor…or if you consider the fact that I’m a smart-ass, there’s some joke about constipation in there somewhere, but I’m too tired and impacted to get to it right now. Anyway, so I have always been prone to attacks of Darth Vader Ear and momentary lapses in the ability to amuse myself (and the other 4 people on earth that find me funny) however my Darth Vader Ear has become a constant phenomena as of late. Allegra used to clear it for 12 hours at a time. As it became less and less effective, I supplemented with random decongestants. However, at this point, all have failed me and I’m one “Luke, I am your father,” away from a black cape and some questionable choices in fashion head-wear.

So…today I consulted with a physician. Now, when I say I consulted with a physician, I mean, I called my “friend” as in a guy I went out with a couple times but we stay in touch and occasionally catch up over dinner or drinks. However, he’s totally qualified! He happens to be an ear, nose, and throat doctor so this is RIGHT up his alley…er…down his canal? I’m not sure how he’d feel about that analogy but you know what I mean. Anyway, and by “consult” I mean I called him and it turns out he was sitting by a pool at a hotel in Florida at a medical conference. So, it’s not like he looked at me or ran any tests or anything remotely scientific and stuff but he is qualified to make expert guesses over the phone. Anyway, he told me a few more decongestants to try over the next few days but he scolded me for letting this go on for so long and told me that depending on the results of the tests he IS going to run on my ear when he gets back, if medication won’t make my ears drain then I would be a candidate for surgery to have tubes put in. Ok, ok, ok…first of all, why do they say “candidate?” It’s not like the surgeons are standing there in pre-op electing which one of us “lucky” ailing patients gets to pay for their kid to go to Harvard or fund their new boat. I don’t have to prepare a speech to explain why I should be selected for today’s OR time. And if I did, what would I say?

“Look, I need these tubes, without them, I’m going to have to go light saber shopping because I can’t wear this cape and helmet and not have a light saber and do you really want a pissy girl with a constipated sense of humor on Atlanta’s highways wielding a light saber at rush hour? It’s really for the public health and safety that I ask you for this opportunity to be severed…er…I mean served.”

And secondly, this is a surgery they do on kindergarteners, not on someone that’s less than two months from turning 30. What’s going on? Kids need these things because their little ear tubs are too small and when they grow up these surgically implanted tubes just fall out because their little ear tubes grew and their bodies finally started working properly. What’s going on here, did my body just suddenly forget what its doing or am I going in reverse? Because if things on my body are going to start shrinking, I have some nominations for pieces that are great candidates but they don’t include my ear tubes. We can start with my ass and my thighs and go from there but leave the ears alone.

Anyway, I could be overreacting. It could be fixable with a different decongestant or something. But I ask you to keep your fingers crossed for my ear tubes because I’ve had a lot of surgery in the last 9 years. And I’m not talking all walk-in-the-park kind of surgeries. I have woken up from surgery in intensive care. I have had emergency blood transfusions. I have spent more than a month in the hospital at a time. I have had holes drilled in my spine. I have had large portions of internal organs removed so I just don’t have happy feelings about hospitals. So, if I could avoid exposing my head to any sort of cutting utensil, I’d like to do that.

And before I wrap up my left-ear issues, I’ll close by saying this. I could probably pull a little humor out of my other ear in my left-ear emergency status but I just haven’t felt up to it this past week. Mr. Damn is mad right now and hasn’t spoken to me in over a week. It’s easy for me to poke fun at us when we’re struggling to find the same page but when I’m afraid he’s closing (or closed) the book, I can’t find any levity – my heart is just too heavy. So apologies to any loyal readers (I know, I’m stretching…my ego) looking for updates but hopefully I’ll have more for you soon. In the mean time maybe I’ll get my ear un-impacted and find some other things to blog about.