After our Egypt trip I, Tony, had a plugged ear….from what? Oh, a small cold in conjunction with flying, diving and swimming. I thought it was a case of swimmers ear, but after some home treatments and time it wasn’t going away, so we thought a wax plug (all other cold symptoms had all but disappeared). I start off seeing the doctor who immediately determines there is no wax plug and that I have a serious condition if it’s not treated aggressively I'll have really big problems. Of course I wasn’t phased by their panic, but listened to my interpreter inform me of all the tests that needed to be done. Here is where it gets interesting. First the doctor has an instrument that more or less looks like a blood pressure cuff missing the “cuff”. She stuffs the open end up my nose and tells me to say a rhyme in Russian and at the right moment during the rhyme she pumps air up my nose and forces air into my sinuses to see if my ears “pop”. Of course they did (she was filling my head like a balloon), I endured this two more times until I opted out of doing it again saying it was working. Somehow this confirmed the suspicion of a serious problem and I was asked if I would consent to an x-ray of my face and asked if I ever had a previous sinus infection. I opted out of the x-ray and confirmed a previous infection in years past. They pondered if they needed to drill a hole into my sinuses to “flush” out any of the infection. Like that was going to happen. I was prescribed three medications, the latest Russian antibiotic called “Tiger”, with the sales brochure still on the table, some ear drops and a nasal spray that took three separate stamps to get approved to issue (probably super addictive). I wasn’t too keen on being an experiment on the latest drug (they couldn’t even tell me what was in it) and I asked for something familiar. This is where I was informed that I was apparently being difficult and why it was so difficult to treat Americans….we don’t follow the doctor’s advice. I didn’t know refusing to get a hole in my head, exposing my brain to more radiation than I already work with and being part of the next phase of human trials of an unknown medication was considered being difficult….huh, go figure.
Oh don’t think this little adventure is over, I’m now scheduled for physical therapy (for my ear?!?!). I don’t really know exactly what is going on, the doctors talk to my translator who ends up filling me in here and there or if it requires a direct input from me. So downstairs we go….here I get to sit down in a chair with a strange looking grey box about the size of small dog cage with two knobs on it connected to a cylinder looking thing. I was scolded for not bringing in my own tissue to cover the cylinder looking thing and was told to hold it to my ear….now trying to be the complying patient I agreed; so I’m holding this thing to my ear a couple of turns of a knob and the thing begins to get warm, “ok” I thought, not too bad, the nurse and my translator walk off while I endure five minutes of this. After it’s all done I asked so “what was that thing?” My translator and nurse says a few words and she then informs me it emits ultra high frequencies, oh great, I either just microwaved my ear drum or at the very least gave it a good ultra sound….nice! At least now I can say “what” to Nichole and have a claim why I didn’t hear her. At this point I thought I was done and was very excited to leave. I figured I came out relatively unscathed and even had a good excuse for not listening, but I was wrong, I had one more event to partake in….I was not amused at this point. I was given a glass looking hooked tube with nothing in it and I was told to hold it to the bridge of my nose. Ok, this looks benign enough, it’s made of glass (non conductive) not pointed at any major organ and they said it gave off light….too bad for me, I was thinking white light…well, whatever it was, it got hot, almost too hot for me to keep to the bridge of my nose, so I thought I would give myself a break and remove it from my nose…ZAP! What in the world happened - did I just get cattle prodded?!! The stupid thing shocked me….this is where I panicked a little, I didn’t know what to do, the nurses would be coming back (I heard noises), I was just electrified and I became afraid they would pin me down and make me do it again I decided to put the thing back onto my nose…..oh my word, it zapped me again now with a tear in my eye (I don’t know about you but hurting my nose makes my eyes water….at least that’s going to be my story) I endured the rest of the test. I wasn’t leaving until I got a picture of this one, no one would believe me. That was the last bit of therapy, it’s a good thing I was ready to run away waving my arms and screaming the bees the bees! I did make it out somewhat dignified, but they asked if I was coming back tomorrow (apparently I was prescribed 10 days of this therapy), God forgive me; I lied, I really lied, I told the lady I had a meeting the next day (I didn’t) and I would come in on my next available day….I was NOT ever coming back, and at this point I think I’ll be forever cured of sickness. What struck me in the end is all I went in for was to see if I had wax in my ear!
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| Do you see the tear? |
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