Is there a doctor in the house?

I believe when God decided to make me He went around his workshop and gathered up all those parts He had left over from making all those other perfect humans, then He cobbled those spare parts together to make me.  I'm not complaining (well maybe whining a little), but I've had more than a few things go wrong with this body over my lifetime.  My friend, Tim, who is a year older than I, does not take one single pill, not even a vitamin.  I take seven pills (2 are vitamins) in the morning and two pills each night.  I realize there are many others who have much worse infirmities and have had to endure so much more than I, and they truly have my compassion.


The first few years of my life didn't provide too much of an indication how hosed up it really was going to get.  I had the normal childhood diseases, and a few that weren't so common.  I distinctly remember whooping cough.  I thought that DPT shot thingy they give to all infants was supposed to prevent whooping cough.  It didn't do a very good job keeping it away from me.  I also remember being rushed to the hospital when I was five or six because they (Who are they anyway?) thought I had appendicitis.  Turned out I had a cyst on my right ovary (a harbinger of horrors to come).  Children that age don't have mature reproductive organs and should not be having problems with those things.  Oh well, I never was any good at doing what I should or should not.  I had my tonsils and adenoids removed when I was 12.  That surgery was very common when we were young, though I understand it isn't nearly so prevalent nowadays.  Actually, 12 was a little old.  My mother must have gotten a package deal from Social Services, because I was hospitalized at the same time as my sisters and all three of us had the same surgery on the same day.  Because they were four years younger, they recovered much more rapidly.  I remember we were offered all the ice cream we could eat, but I didn't want mine so Cathy perked up and said "If you're not gonna eat that can I have it?"  The first thing I ate was a dill pickle, but that was the next day.  I could barely even swallow after the surgery.  After that my childhood progressed admirably.  I did not have any broken bones or stitches.  It wasn't that I was a wimp and never did anything that might cause bodily harm, I was just unbelievably lucky.


I was born with a deviated septum, but had not had any noticeable problems with breathing or hearing so no one knew.  Then along about the time I was 16 my brother Harry decided to deviate it a bit more for me.  To be honest, there was appreciable tension in the house.  Our father had just died and though it meant nothing to me, Harry had known him and had actually had a relationship with him off and on over the years.  My mother had gone to Georgia to attend the funeral (they'd only been divorced more than a decade!?) and stayed there to clear up some paperwork.  Harry and his wife Sarah had returned to New Jersey after the funeral to watch over the young'uns.  Our "discussion" involved whether I was going to wash the dirty dishes right away or wait until I got good and ready.  Harry thought right away was the better choice, but I disagreed.  I don't think he intentionally broke my nose, but that was the result when I finally pushed him as far as he was gonna go that day.  It also delayed the dish washing.  As a matter of fact, I think someone else got stuck with job because I was a little worse for the wear.  Broken noses are apparently the way we say "I love you" in our family because Glenn's nose was broken by Joe as well (I may have played a small part in that scenario too).  Since our noses are the largest thing on our face, if you come anywhere near the head area you are probably gonna strike a nose.  Our father could have given Jimmy Durante a run for his money in the nose department, and he passed it along to all of us, though not nearly as extreme as his was.  Seriously!  When I was about eight years old our father decided to come visit all of his little hooligans for some reason.  He left us just before I turned five, so it had been three years or so since I'd seen the man and I barely remembered what he looked like.  My father would not have recognized me either so I don't feel at all bad about it.  I can't imagine what my mother was thinking letting him visit, but she was a much more forgiving person than I am.  We were living in The Projects and our house was not on the street.  All of the houses were white stucco at that time, and they all looked exactly alike.  So Mom sent me and my brother Joe out to the road to show our father how to find our house. I asked my brother how we were supposed to recognize him and he said "Just look for a big nose driving a car down the street."  And, that is exactly how I recognized him and pointed him out to Joe so he could wave him over.


Anyway, back to my now seriously deviated septum.  When I was 24 I began to notice whenever anyone said anything to me, my response was "Huh?"  It irritated a number of people because everyone thought I was never paying attention.  That wasn't it at all.  I was losing my hearing.  I finally went to see an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist and it turned out I couldn't hear because my deviated septum was causing fluids to back up into my Eustachian tubes and making it nearly impossible for me to hear.  The answer to my problem was nose surgery.  I should have had him reshape the silly thing while he was in there, but really I was more concerned about being able to hear again than I was about the size of my schnoz.  I'd made it to where I was with the one I was originally issued, so I never even thought to do anything about it.


I have mentioned that a have a physically small mouth.  Again, I must reiterate, it is structurally small but an awful lot of noise comes out of it.  Because of my too small mouth, all four of my wisdom teeth were impacted.  As a matter of fact, not one of them ever even broke the skin attempting to emerge.  I had to have them surgically removed, which in 1976 meant you had to go into the hospital.  I had them cut out, but unfortunately the root of one was so irregular it was necessary to break my jaw in order to remove it.  Even then they managed to disrupt some of the nerve endings and the left half of my bottom lip did not regain any feeling until six months later (made kissing a whole new experience).


After that there were numerous surgeries involving my erratic, messed up reproductive system.  We don't need to go into those details, but it turned out I had five surgeries over the course of ten years.  And there have been numerous other visits to countless other doctors for endless other problems including new knees, gall bladder, just all sorts of pesky little issues.  The thing is, every time you go to see a new doctor they ask you to list all the medications you take and all the surgeries you've ever had.  By the time I was in my 50's, it was a pretty extensive list.  So I now have computer files that I print out before each new doctor visit.  I update them regularly when a medication changes or a new surgery is added.  It's a whole lot easier than trying to remember all that nonsense.


I probably should just move to Georgia into a home next door to my sister Cathy who is an exceptional Family Physician.  It might save everyone a whole lot of trouble.