Nurse the Hate: My New Healthcare Initiative

I suffered a scuba diving accident in Belize.  This is a very unusually manly sentence for me to write, much like “I hurt my wrist rock climbing” or “I sprained my shoulder fighting a marlin while deep sea fishing”.  It's pretty ridiculous.  I am more likely to suffer a unicorn trampling than what I did to myself.  I would like to tell you how I have been suffering in silence like Hemingway, oblivious to the discomfort of the injury.  That would be a lie.  I have been whining like a baby about the barotrauma in my left ear.   

Barotrauma means that because I foolishly dove to 60 feet with a head cold and couldn’t effectively clear the pressure in my ears, I fucked one of them up for awhile.  I have a bunch of “fluid” in my middle ear which makes everything sound like I am wearing one earplug.  I can’t judge how loud I am speaking, so I have overcompensated and become a “low talker”.  It makes awful crackling sounds and at various times I can’t clear the pressure in my skull.  I don’t know what this “fluid” is exactly, but the eleven year old girl nurse practitioner I saw didn’t seem too worked up about it.  I was given a few pills with the marching orders of “Umm...  if it doesn’t get better in a few weeks, come on back I guess”.   

The older I become the more I am aware of the basic ineptness of most medical professionals.  Don’t get me wrong.  Most of them are probably very “book smart” and probably knocked their SATs and Boards right out of the park.  The issue appears to be that most of them don’t want to be held accountable for anything so they won’t offer any kind of opinion or expectation unless you hold a pistol to their head.  Hey Doc, if I ask you how long my ear is going to be fucked up, I’m not coming back to blame you if it doesn’t heal in that time window.  Ease up.  I just want to feel like someone that knows more about the gross “fluid” in my ear can give me a reasonable expectation of the timetable to getting back to normal.  “Thanks for the $200 for the office visit Mr. Miller.  Take some decongestants and maybe that will help your fucked up ear.  Maybe it won’t.  See ya later. Come back in a month.  That will give me the chance to be ambiguous once again for another $200.”   

This situation has left me taking an array of decongestants from the pharmacy.  Making matters even more exciting is that I either have a head cold or sinus infection that leaves and returns over and over again, or my resistance is so compromised that I catch everything my disease ridden co-workers bring into my place of employment.  There are so many people coughing and hacking in here it sounds like a Cholera Clinic in the turn of the century.  I feel like we should all be sitting outside on lawn chairs under blankets while taking “the cure” from the restorative waters of Lake Erie.  Perhaps at dusk we can retire to the drawing room where Miss Daisy can sing a few songs with that helpful Mr. Phipps accompanying her on piano while we enjoy tea.

I am now horribly addicted to Dayquil and his horrible brother Nyquil.  Yesterday I started sneezing for no particular reason after going for a run.  This left me no choice but to once again climb onto the Syrup Dragon and have jarring dreams where I have to perform music in front of large expectant crowds without any idea of the words, walk fields of daisies looking for a lost key, and stack a never ending pile of books for a crying woman in a bookstore that looks like the Book Loft in Columbus if the roof blew off.  This does not make for relaxing sleep, yet I can’t wake up due to the grogginess of the Magic Syrup. 

I am going to turn this situation around starting today.  I really feel now with increasing confidence that I need to approach this with a game plan that would make “Papa” Hemingway proud.  I will now attack this like a confrontational alcoholic writer from the 1930s and heavy up on the rum and whiskey.  I will resign myself to the fact that my left ear is now lost forever, and it is nothing more than an annoyance.  If you are one of the people that are going to see me with the Daredevils on our run of 16 shows in Europe, I will be the one that is tone deaf and horribly drunk on whiskey.  This is exactly what one looks for in a vocalist.  Well, if one is in the Pogues I guess.  No matter.  It is all part of my New Manly Healthcare Initiative.  There is no other way.  Pass the whiskey.