A Shot In The Ass!

Well now isn't my 2005 off to great start! No sooner did my insurance through my parents get cancelled as of January 1st 2005, did I develop one of my famous cyst/abscess, on my ear lobe, not my mind, although it can be argued that I do have one there as well. Now I have always had a small pocket of something inside my ear lobe, on occasion I try to make my brothers feel it. The only way to describe it is, it feels like a small ball bearing rolling around inside my skin.

Now I believe there to be some correlation between my eating of Chinese food and the re-appearance of these cyst. But after the last Dr.'s visit for one, he told me a food allergy wouldn't cause such localized inflammations of the giant kind to my face. If it was an allergic reaction I would develop several around various parts of my body similar to hives. Thanks Dock, that's al I needed know! My torrid love affair with Chinese food could begin anew!

Since my last visit to the DR I started to consume Chinese food on three other occasions, limiting myself to only crab Rangoon and potstickers. This seemed to work fine for me and the correlation between massive cyst and Chinese food seemed to have been disproved. For the time being at least

so on January 2nd I awoke to a hunger that could only be quelched by a delicacy of the Chinese kind! So I got my usual from the local Chinese joint ate it and everything seemed fine. These cyst have a funny way of developing while I'm asleep. So I awoke the next day to my surprise to find my once benign ear lobe cyst had now become malignant, or is that vise versa?
Well, I said to myself, "isn't that interesting. It seems my lobal cyst has doubled in size."
"Its probably nothing, Ill just go to work now.
So I ignored the mighty cyst that had now taken on a new life of its own. I can imagine in my head the green globulas bacteria multiply and dividing forming a thick fluid contained to the isolated most insignificant part of my body, waiting to burts forth and splatter itself onto the bathroom mirror. Theirs nothing better then squeezing a big juicy one and watching its contents birst forth, and I know I am not alone on this one. I also envision a scenario similar to Osmosis Jones, the hit animated movie staring Bill Murray and Chris Rock.

So when I awoke on the third day I was once again surprised to find my little pet infect had tripled in size completely disforming my entire earlobe and reaching its infectious talons out into my cheek! Now I was a bit concerned. I had never seen such a distortion of my earlobe before, I mean I have small ear lobes and to go to having a giant lobe that's deformed and streches down my face, is quite disconcerting. Purely from a cosmetic stanpoint. The deformation and swelling had now escalated to the point of painful to the touch. Any normal person would have made an immediate Dr.s appointment. Not me, I have had these in the past and wasn't too concerned at this point, although I did ask may mom what she thought. She suggested immediate medical attention, but the way she said it, It seemed like she was to concerned and lacking insurance I decided I was too cheap and would wait a couple more days to see if it would go down.

So two days later My ear is still the same size all puffy red and ungulateing and people at work had began to notice it,
"Dude what's up with your ear" commented a coworker
I replied with, "Its infected or some shit, I don't know, its probably an abscess."
Now my ear become the topic among the servers that night, and after 5 or more people cam up to me and said "you should get that checked out!" My concern for my precious brain became all to clear.

You see the ear lobeinfection isn't the problem, its when the infections creeps out of its self contained lobal part and decides to take up residence in your brain and blood stream, which can kill you, or worse yet turn you into a retarded person. As one wise coworker and mother pointed out "If you don't get that taken care of now, you could end up in the hospital paying twice as much just to keep you alive!" Sound words of advice, that I would here a few more times that night, which got me thinking it was time to ask my mom for a second opinion on the matter.

Once again asking my mother what to do about my once little but now consuming my face infection, she suggested once again, although this time with a little more gusto that I immediately go over to the 24 hour emergency center, 2 miles from our house on Lake St. An emergency center is basically like a hospital, but its not? The cheap part of me first wanted to know how much this was going to cost, but a quick search of their website provided no information. I guess if your sick you'll pay whatever, but now that my hypocondria was in overdrive I thought it best not to make a regular Dr. Appointment, that could take three more days, and if my infection got worse I could end up in the hospital either way. But I am still a cheap skate, and money comes before my health. I can just see my tombstone, "Here lies Francis, too cheap to save his own life"

Finding little info about cost of treating a person I decided to go there and ask in person, that's how they rope you in, they don't tell you how much it will cost to save your life until after your admitted and even then you get surprise bills that keep coming in the mail. When I asked the nurse at the reception desk how much it would cost to see a Dr. WITH OUT INSURANCE stressing that point, she responded with "oh may--be $70.......90 dollar" in a strong Philippine accent. Then she paused and changed her mind and said "I not sure, but you want to see Dr. I need drivers license!"Well that seemed pretty cheap, so what the hell and I began to fill out all the necessary paper work.

It wasn't until I got into the examination room through the usual discourse about why your there with the male nurse who was a rather large jovial man with a beard and glass's that he informed of the true cost

"Ok lets see, why are you here?" said the male nurses.

"Oh my ears got this nasty infection, here take a look" I replied

"I would have waited till next week to see my primary care Dr. But everybody kept telling me this thing could get worse and I could get blood poisoning or a massive brain infection yada yada yada potentially die from it, and the lady at the front said it would only cost like 90 bucks."

The male nurse leaned forward his gasses dipped forward a bit onto his noise and said

"90 dollars, who told you that?" "This is emergency care your looking at about $200 without insurance!"

There was then a long pause and the mail nurse could tell I looked extremely worried about the cost he had mentioned. This was true, in my head I was rationalizing how I could de-admit myself with out getting charged.

The male nurse leaned in again and said "well if you think about, and you take care of this abscess now, you could be potentially saving yourself thousands of dollars, if the infection spreads and you have to get laid up in the hospital for two weeks hooked up to IV's and being mega-dosed with antibiotics!" His words seemed strangely familiar and made sense! I wouldn't want those kind of bills. Besides he replied once again, "you can always work out a payment plan over time."

once all the questions had been answered, he instructed me to lay on the bed and wait for the DR. On his way out he asked if I would like something to drink and I replied with "water please." In my mind I was really saying for two hundred dollars the least you can do is get me some water, and bring back a hooker you fat bastard! When he returned with the water he asked "if there was anything else I needed, perhaps some magazines?" I responded with "all those magazines on the table over in the corner of the room wore outdated Popular House Wives, you got anything else? Not to put you out?" "No trouble" he replied, and returned with some outdated car magazines. I guess because I'm a guy, but I have no interest in cars.

As I flipped through the magazines awaiting the DR the clock in the room had an incessant TICK, TICK, which was driving me mad. The ticking seemed to take my focus clearly off my throbbing ear lobe, and how much this vist to the emergency center was costing me.

I was completely hypnotized by the ticking of the clock that I was startled by the DR.s light tap, tap, on the door. I was even more surprised to discover that the Dr was a she, and a hot one at that, well if you discount the giant black bags under her eyes.

"Ok what do you have here, lets take a look" said the DR.

Her eyes began to scan my face until it reached my left infected ear lobe, then quickly scanned back to my right ear lobe then back again to the right, and this went on for some time before she actually put on some groves and started touching the infected mass. I always enjoy it when people touch my oddities for some reason, even thought the slightest breeze across it hurt like hell.

The DR then stepped back for a minute and looked confused as if she didn't know what she was looking at, or what to do. This seems to be common with all my aliments and DRs'. She then said "you know what were going to do......" I interrupted her before she could finish.

"your going to lance it right!" My early attempts at self lancing were foiled to to the extreme pain in the area, I even contemplated picking up some Booze to get drunk on before attempting such an act. The internet with its lack of sites on self lancing an abscess and my moms advice against such an idea, kept me from going through with it.

"No I think.........You see I've never sween anything like this before, I mean we get patients with giant boils or abscess's on their arms and backs, which are easy because we pop them open and pack them...........But this area is too small, and.......To cosmetic....I mean you can see it, I wouldn't want to attempt anything like that, its not my specialty." said the DR.

In other words I knew what she was saying, I don't want to accidentally fuck up your face and have you come back and sue my ass for malpractice you cheap poor noninsured giant thing growing on your head mother fucker! I went there with the sole intent on having a lancing procedure, and boy was I crushed to learn it wouldn't happen.

So instead the DR suggested "we be very agressive with this infection, it has the potential of getting much worse"

"But I don't have any insurance right now, I just got kicked from it on the January 1st" "you know I'm not saying I don't want to get this taken care of........"

"Well here's what we will do, I know money is an option, but I don't see how we'll......Here I will get you started with a shot of antibiotics immediately, because this looks bad, real bad! I don't want this infection spreading, and it looks like its already starting too, and I'll give you a referral to an Ear Noise and Throat DR who specializes in this kind of thing.........And I'll give you a prescription for some more antibiotics, but you need to follow up with the END in two days!"

I was now wide eyed and dissy thinking about how much all this medical crap is going to cost me, when my attention was once again gained by the DR. Mumbling to herself about the types of antibiotics she liked VS. Cost.

"I guess I could give you, no I'll give you Clavulnate, its a strong antibiotic.... But money, it will cost you about $100."

She then decided to justify the reason for the high cost prescription "you see its better you pay now, what is actually a low cost when compared if the infection spreads to your brain and you have to be re-admitted to the hospital and hooked up to IV's for a week!"

Good point Dock! Her profound words seemed familiar and made sense, so my uneasiness about the cost was laid to rest, well for the time being, we'll see when the bills start to arrive.

The DR now began to leave and mention the nurse would be in shortly to give me a shot of Amoxicillan. Shortly later the male nurse popped his head in, braking my trance with the loud clock, to tell me" it will just be a 5 minutes or so wile the antibiotic dissolves."

"Oh! How much are you going to give me?"

"It's three CC's"

"Is that a lot?"

"yah........Oh you didn't think I was going to give it to you in your arm, did you?

I was halftempted to reply with a nieve "well yah" when he continued speaking making a valiant point.

"If I gave it to you in your arm, you wouldn't be able to use it for a couple of days!

This sent me into a panic, I had never taken a shot in the ass before, well if you don't count my visit to this place, at least not literally. The male nurse then returned moments later with the needle in hand and explained "I cut it with, Litocain, just to take the edge off." Well that was nice, I guess? I was a bit confused on how this process worked, I've seen it done in the movies, but had to ask

"do I bend over, lay down, how do we do this thing?"

"Ah just give me a bit of your left cheek, you can lay down if you want?"

I then pulled my pants down a bit and asked "is this alright?"

"yah that's good, now relax" and the bastard poked me in my right cheek!

There is something very odd about the feeling of a fluid being forced in over/into your muscle, you can feel it and imagine it all at the same time. It is by far the wierdest and most uncomfortable experience I have ever had! The male nurse then instructed me to move my leg around a bit to work it in, and he would be back in fifteen minutes to make sure I didn't have any allergy's, or vomiting. Once he left the room I sprung from the bed in what can best be described as the sorest muscle ache I have ever had. It felt like I ran five miles, stopped and then beet my ass with a ballpeen hammer! I began flopping about the room making weird three stooges noises. I can only imagine, what those out side the room thought I was doing. The incessant noise of the clock wouldn't distract me this time, although I did pay special attention to the time, so I would know when the nurse would be back and could jump back into the bed as if nothing was wrong before he returned.

Once the male nurse returned I was relieved to learn my time spent there was up, and upon walking out I was now limping substantially, which the nurse reassured me was perfectly natural. I went in for my abscess ear lobe and left looking like I fell down a flight of stairs.

So ends my adventure at the 24 emergency care building. I can say that who knew my ear lobe would turn out to be my Achilles heel?