I Don't Have a Brain Tumor, but I'm Still an Idiot

Sometimes we do things that we shouldn't do: We procrastinate. We do other, more fun things.  We listen to the voice in our head that says, "Sure, that sounds like an excellent idea.  Why don't you do that!"

It usually isn't an excellent idea.  My mom tells this story about me, that when I was small, I shoved a whole almond up my nose and it got stuck.  

I think she said I was a toddler.  I'm pretty sure the story went something like, "You were in your high chair and then I turn around and you had shoved an almond," and this is where my Mom gets all loud and gesticulates, "AN ENTIRE ALMOND! ALL THE WAY UP YOUR LITTLE NOSE!"  

"I was so panicked.  I couldn't get it out of your nose.  It was really up there.  And there you were staring at me.  With an almond up your little nose." At this point, everyone in the room is usually staring at me, imagining me with the almond up my nose, my little nose.

"So I call the pediatrican, Dr.Crawford (I think) and I have to tell him everything!" I have to say, that Mom is getting a little accusatory at this point, even though more than 40 years have gone by. "Then I turn around and you are crying and the little almond is now hanging out of your nose on a tiny little thread of snot."

She smiles.  My snot is cute.  I've snotted the almond out of my little nose.  I'm so smart. Snot smart.

Why have I told you this story? Oh, right, because, sometimes, we just do things, and we think that this is an excellent idea.  And evidently, I have been having excellent ideas since I was a toddler.  

Dewey with Princess Leia ears.

My co-workers thought it was an excellent idea to make Dewey look like Princess Leia, since his ears were so long. I think it kind of worked.  He even has a sort of come hither look about him.

Dewey with bunny ears.

Recently, I lost my sense of smell.  Actually, it has gone away and has been missing for several months.  I only discovered it was gone when I took Dewey to school and Jan and Christina said that he smelled like pee.

"What!  He does not.  I can't smell anything." They stared at me.  Balefully.

"He smells like urine." They would not budge.

I went into my office and sprayed him with the French dog perfume that our French teacher had given me.  This seemed like an excellent idea.  

"Now he smells like urine and perfume." They said wrinkling their noses.  Great.  I eyed him.  He was happy. And smelly.  I knew how this had happened.  He was, at this time, small enough to walk under Jam and Jam had no qualms about continuing to pee while Dewey walked under him.  Wonderful.  A pee pee dog.

I walked him back into my office and took out the wet wipes. I wiped him down thoroughly. Then I got out the lavender oil.  I rubbed a little on him and sniffed.  Nothing. Sigh.  I brought him back in.

"MMMMMM.  He smells great." Big smiles.

Here I am kissing a non-stinky Dewey on the top of the head.

At this point, I knew I had better see a doctor about my nose, which was probably smarting from that almond damage from oh so many years ago. So I went to an ENT specialist, who just happened to be a Berkeley parent as well. He was very nice.  He didn't see any tumors, but wanted to do a CT scan to be sure because that was one of the reasons why you lose your sense of smell.

Now, hearing the words tumors, CT scan, and just to be sure, are not the most confidence building words I can ever imagine, so it was a pretty stressful time for me.  I couldn't smell, I thought I might have a brain tumor and I didn't really want to broadcast it to everyone.

During the wait to get the results, we went for a weekend up to New Orleans to celebrate my Dad's birthday.  I thought this was going to be great because New Orleans is a wonderful place, and my mom and dad are lots of fun.  Plus, this time my brother would be joining us.  So we would get to have a real family weekend.

We ate a lot of food, drank a lot of coffee with chicory, and shopped incessantly.  I would say it was a very good weekend.  Until Saturday evening, the night before our flight out Sunday morning.  That's when I had another excellent idea.

Our hotel, the Royal Sonesta, fronts Bourbon Street, which you may or may not know is quite noisy on a normal night.  Well, at 2:30 am on that particular night, it so happened that a band was playing, a cat fight broke out and someone was randomly screaming.  ALL AT ONCE. RIGHT UNDER OUR WINDOW.

I woke up.  It was 2:30 am.  I was thinking that I had to leave in the morning and I did NOT want to be up for the next 3 hours listening to this madness.  I tried the pillow over the head.  NO. Closing my eyes really tight didn't help either.

Then I had my EXCELLENT IDEA.

I would make ear plugs out of toilet paper! So, I got out of bed and went to the bathroom and made two ear plugs.  The first one went in my left ear, no problem.  The second one, went in and ....

DISAPPEARED.

HOLY SHIT.

Where did my ear plug go?  I stuck my finger in my ear.  There was no ear plug! I tried a little harder.  Ouch.

I sat on the bed.  Holy crap.  I've lost my ear plug. How am I going to explain that? Suddenly the noise outside doesn't seem so loud.  Is this going to show up on the CT Scan?  Am I going to have to explain, "Oh, I make my own ear plugs all the time and lose them.  That's probably why I have so many brain tumors: they are just lost ear plugs!"

Crap!  And the ENT is a Berkeley parent! Perfect. Now he'll know that I'm an idiot who makes her own ear plugs and shoves them in her ears like a two year old.  Wait.  I bet ENTs have a big list that they keep of stupid things people put in their ears and I bet HOMEMADE EARPLUGS don't even make the list!

OMG.  I have to get this out of my ear!

I tried to go back to sleep.  What was I going to do?

Finally, I had another excellent idea: toilet paper dissolves! I would take a shower and run water in my ear!

So that's what I did.  I got up in the morning and took a shower and ran water in my ear. Nothing.  Nothing happened.

So I waited for three weeks, until my doctor's appointment to get my ear taken care of.  It went something like this:

Nurse: So, you are here to see the results of your CT Scan?

Me: Yes.  And I think I might have something in my right ear.
(haha, yeah, right! I do have something! A homemade earplug!)

Nurse: Oh.  I'll let him know.

Me: (to myself) Great.  Now I don't have to explain anything! Woot!

Later.

Doctor: So, you think you have something in your ear?

Oh, crap.