Honorable Discharge

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

First off, yes, I probably did write this post mostly just to use that title. Deal.

Well, the saga has come to somewhat of a close. What saga? The belly button story, of course! As you can read in my last blog entry, a few weeks ago my navel started to bleed and ooze and hurt a lot for no discernible reason. Not being a fan of my lifefluids oozing out of me, I thought that it would be wise to have someone of a medical nature take a look at it. I scheduled a doctor's appointment as soon as I could, but even this was a bit of a fiasco, since this whole mess happened over a three-day weekend. Of course, the doctors all took a three-day weekend too, which I'm not sure is safe. In any case, by the time I got in there, most of the problem had taken care of itself. This, of course, did not help my case.

The nurse called me back and did all the standard check-up procedures. She then sat down at the computer, innocently expecting to transcribe a standard medical problem.

"What's the problem?"

"Well....a few days ago my navel started to bleed and ooze. I figured I should see someone."

There was a long pause. And a grimace.

"That's awful."

"Yeah, I'm not too thrilled with it myself."

She typed it into the computer and left the room. I'm certain she went straight to her other nurse friends to talk about the gross guy in room five.

My doctor showed up eventually, and the first thing he said was something to the effect of, "Dr. Morrison down the hall is a surgeon, and he really wants to see this, so I'm going to bring him in, OK?"

Let me tell you, there is no thrill equal to that of being a medical novelty. "Dude...you gotta come check this guy out. Gross!"

In any case, I was quickly on my back with two doctors passing a viewer back and forth. For those of you who remember the thing they use to look in your ears...yeah, that's what they used in my navel, or "umbilicus," in those ol' medical terms. This was, of course, a pretty painful experience. "Doctor, it hurts when I do this!" "Well, let me do that! Over and over! And then some more!"

Eventually they both had their fill of gazing into my navel, and, completely ignoring the presence of the actual patient, conversed with each other about what had happened and what to do about it. I guess they just hoped that I would follow along. I did manage to ask my original doctor why this was so intriguing. His response? "We see this all the time in babies, but never in big people!"

Oh, good then.

I walked out with a prescription for antibiotics and the promise of an appointment in a week with a surgeon in order to, and this is really what they said, "ream it out."

Ream: verb. 1. To form, shape, taper, or enlarge (a hole or bore, for example) with or as if with a reamer. 2. To remove (material) by this process.

Yeah. That's right.

So, I took my three giant pills each day and started feeling pretty good about things. No more big pain, no more bleeding. Keen!

Thursday came, however, and with it the promise of a thorough reaming. I showed up and again assumed the position. The ever-garrulous Dr. Morrison stood over me armed with Q-Tips and some forceps. I'm not sure exactly what he did with it, though I would be inclined to believe that the Q-Tip was actually made of steel wool. I wasn't in a great position to watch, but there was pain, and there was blood. That's about all I know. I walked out with yet another bloody cotton "stuffing" and pain upon motion. And, of course, the promise of a follow up on Monday.

Monday came, and the lovely Dr. Morrison, patron saint of good conversation, entered the room and pulled out the ear-looking-thingie. I will never look at one of those in the same way.

"There's some healing tissue...it should still be tender."

POKE.

"Did that hurt?"

"Yes."

Didn't he just promise me that it was going to hurt? Could he just not have left that one to faith?

The good doctor told me that I need to keep it dry (this has resulted in a most entertaining use of a blowdryer). Hopefully this prevents it from happening again. In the meantime, I have now added one more disease to my list of "Weird Crap that Never Happens to Anyone Else." Here's hoping for leprosy next!