Irritable Male Syndrome

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Ok, I get it; I'm getting old. I understand now. I don't need any more reminders, damn it.

It's not enough that the skin cancer didn't quite get this point across. It's also not enough, I guess, that I can't hear out of my left ear.

EH? What's that, Sonny? Speak up!

Yesterday, after lifting weights, I jumped in the shower to rinse off. With the water bouncing off my chest, I slowly spun my body counterclockwise to allow the wetness to cascade down my back. As I turned, I felt a sharp pain on the right side of my neck.

I tweaked a fucking nerve or muscle in my neck by TURNING AROUND. I am El Pussy Grande.

Picture it; I can't hear out of my left ear. I can't turn my head to the right. So, if I hear some sort of commotion out of my one good ear, I can't even acknowledge it without turning my entire body, like some modern day freaking Frankenstein, with dimples.

And a middle ear infection.

Friday, August 26, 2005

I am 10 years old.

Granted, we all know that I have the mentality of a pre-teen--what with my propensity to laugh at the word "poop"-- and my math skills can only be described as "a joke", but now there's another reason that makes it that much more difficult for anyone believe that I really am 30 years old.

I have an ear infection.

Yeah, good, great, grand. What 30 year old gets an ear infection? Me, apparently.

Twat? I cunt hear you. I have an ear infucktion. Can you help me finger it out?

See what I mean? Damn I loved that witty play on words when I was a kid.

A few weeks ago I went to Urgent Care because I'd been having a pain in my left year. "Urgent", my ass. More like "We'll get to you before you pass out from the pain Care". I sat in the waiting room for three hours for them to tell me that I had a big, hard ball of ear wax that was causing the pain. No shit? Well, get it out!

They tried, and tried, but the damn thing wouldn't budge. A little gross, I know, but at least it wasn't wax on the outside of my ear. It's not like anyone could see it without an otoscope, so whatever. They also tried to soften it up with this stuff called Colace, that doubles as a stool softener, but it didn't do the trick. It's a good thing that the liquid doesn't seep through the skin, otherwise I would've crapped my pants right there in the doctor's office, and I'm just not up for that kind of embarrassment these days.

The doctor told me to go home, buy a bottle of Colace and put a few drops in my ear a few times a day, and then come back when the wax is loosened. So, not only do I have a big Death Star of goo attached to my ear canal, but I was now supposed to enter a real pharmacy, with real people working behind the counter, and buy something that's usually reserved people for old people and babies. I would've rather bought adult diapers.

I had the mental of image of bringing the Colace up to the counter, laughing nervously when the Somali lady behind the counter uses the intercom to request "Price Check on Stool Softener. Colace". And then when she looks at me uneasily, I point to my ear and mumble "wax ball", and that gets an even weirder look from her, as if I just spoke in a dead language or some shit like that.

I didn't need that. Fortunately, I couldn't find any store that sold Colace liquid, only pills. I'm no genius, but I have a feeling that sticking a pill in my ear wouldn't have the same effect. At all. It would probably just make things worse.

So, I went with the over-the-counter wax remedy, Debrox. It took two weeks for it to work, but it finally worked. A few days ago, after two weeks of intense labor, my ear gave birth to a sticky orb; a resin baby. There was a problem, though--it was still born. It didn't cry, it didn't even breathe. It just sat there like a ball of wax.

The other, bigger problem, was that my ear started to bleed and I couldn't hear a damn thing. That's not usually a good sign, is it? What? Speak up, I can't hear, remember? Christ.

Back to Urgent Care, I go! Wee, this is as much fun as a barium enema.

This time they took my plight a little more seriously and I got to see a doctor in less than hour, only to have her say "Yup, looks like you've got a pretty decent ear infection. Just like little kids usually get." Thanks, Doc. No, really, describing it that way makes me feel like such a man. Perhaps you'd like to tell me my penis is "cute" while you're at it? That would give me the same feeling.

She prescribed me a drug named "Ceftin" for the infection, and said that if it keeps oozing clear fluid after I'm done with the medication--right now, it is--I'd have to come back so that they can check for a punctured eardrum. Lovely.

Yesterday I was reading up on the wonder drug, Ceftin, you know, just to make sure I could drink while taking it--I can--and the website I was on listed all it's various uses. There was, of course, the ear, sinus and throat infection, but at the bottom of the list, there stood the super-happy-fun STD, gonnorhea.

What she didn't tell me was that my ear was not only infected, but it has The Clap to boot. I guess the good thing about this is that, if I'm quick about it, I can go out, get gonorrhea, and not have to get a new prescription for it. Two birds, one stone.

So, just a forewarning for those that were looking to fuck my ear this weekend; Don't, I have no idea where it's been.