It was just another routine visit to the lung specialist.
‘Got a cold?’ He asked jocularly, whilst writing my usual inhaler prescription.
‘Just the same old sniff. You know, the one I've had for years.’
‘Ah yes.’ He beamed. ‘Anything else?’
‘No, except for a twinge in my left temple. Would aspirin help do you think? Can’t lay on that side without it hurting.’
‘Really?’ He was bolt upright now. ‘You’d better see the internal medical specialist.’
3 months later:
‘Pain in the left temple is it?’ Asks the IMS. ‘You had better have a C.T. scan. Anything else troubling you?’
‘Well… I have had a dodgy stomach for a couple of years now.’
‘Really? Better have a colonoscopy as well then.’
‘Huh?’
‘Just to be on the safe side.’
1 month later:
‘The results of the colonoscopy are fine,' chirps the IMS and I sigh with relief...
'However the C.T. scan results are not good. The left sinuses are very narrow and distorted and bunged up. I’ll give you a letter for an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist.
2 months later:
The ENT specialist is convinced I am someone else entirely and is cross when I insist I am not! His computer is not even turned on and he huffily ignores the IMS’s written request to diagnose my C.T. scan. Instead, he shines a light up my right nostril from about a meter away and tells me I have hay fever.
‘Hay fever? In one side of my nose?’ I ask. ‘And besides doctor, you are looking up the wrong nostril.’
Crossly, he shines the light up the other nostril and tells me I am a typical hyperactive English person (!) Grrr…So I ask if he is referring to my Anglo/Celtic character - which he does not know - or to some mysterious sinus anomaly, unique to Brits in general? Ha! However the man couldn’t care less and dismisses me with a prescription for one small bottle of nose spray, with instructions to squirt it up both nostrils for the rest of my life; ‘because we don’t want to get polyps now do we?’ Fuming, I am back out in the corridor within five minutes, feeling as though I have just left the Twilight Zone!
By now another six months have passed and I return to the lung specialist – and tell him all! Frowning mightily, he downloads my C.T. scan, poo-poos the ENT specialist’s nose spray and prescribes new nose drops he nicknames ‘bombs’. Apparently these are ampules of a burning substance that should chemically ‘blow everything wide open’ and if that doesn’t work, I will need an operation. Though he hastens to reassure me that another ENT specialist will perform it. Too right mate!
Back home again, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Within the last six months, I have had my head stuck in a radioactive ‘oven’; had a 2 meter hose with a camera and lamp on the end of it shoved up my backside; been neglected and insulted by someone I went to in good faith; and am now on my knees with my head on the floor, squirting a ‘burning bomb’ up my left nostril! Not only that but I have exceeded my medical insurance ‘own risk’ for 2008 – and that ENT specialist got nearly half of it!
And the twinge in my left temple that started it all? Oh that’s still there – complete with a brand new nervous tic in the left eyelid....bah!
Wish I'd just taken that aspirin.........tic...
6 comments:
Keep taking the pills, and laugh a little every day!
LOL! Good advice grannymar. Now if I could just remember where I put the note I wrote to remind me where I put the pills....
O gosh,
may be if they had just stuck the tube up the other end: your nose in this case??!
I'd have liked to see it up the ENT's...nose!
Oh dear!
You have had a bit of a run around, haven't you?
I think you can safely avoid that ENT guy in future. I met one a bit like that once and I moved on very quickly.
I've also spent half my life putting drops into my head. I can give you a tip which you may find useful.
When your sinuses hurt, it can be very uncomfortable to have to put your head 'forward and down' to get the drops into your head. I alternate this position with another one where I lie on my back across a bed and let my head hang backwards over the edge to insert the drops. This allows the drops to reach another aspect of your head so you get the best effect.
I recommend you avoid surgery on your sinuses if at all possible. The secret is to reduce chronic inflammation in the lining so that they can drain naturally. My CT scans are always grossly abnormal but as long as I have good drainage, I'm okay.
The best of luck!
Btw I've also had lots of experience of colonoscopies - not nice!
Hi Steph - welcome to my little blog!
Yes, that ENT guy is definately history...grr.
Thanks for the good advice on taking the drops laying down. I tried it the way you said (with the ampule) and it burned a lot less. The old knees also feel a lot better!
Thanks too for the good luck wishes - and I hope neither of us ever need to have another colonoscopy... ugh!
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