The Lebanese Invasion of Suzanne's Nostrils, part 2

Last night after my appointment with Doctor Lebanon, I went home and did a little internet research about nasal polyps. Every page I came up with indicated that steroid-based nasal sprays do a fine job at shrinking the swelling that comes with nasal polyps, and that surgery is often a last-ditch effort to remove only the largest and most obstructive polyps. I remembered I had some Flonase spray, which is a steroid, and so I took a nice shot of that before bedtime. I took another one this morning, and was treated to mostly opened sinuses all day. Still had a runny nose, but again, mostly breathable.

My appointment with Dr. H_____ was at 3:15. I walked into his office and was instantly back in 1973. Granted I was born in 1980, but somehow I imagine this is what everything in 1973 looked like: wooden panelling, macrame wall hangings, yellowed photographs of men with mustaches and paisley vests and women with shiny but short "Laverne & Shirley" hair-dos. I half-expected there to be ancient copies of Ladies Home Journal and National Geographic on the "mod" wood-formica furniture, so it was a bit of a color shock to see this month's issue of Cosmo on the table. Odd.

Due to the disco-era decorations, I mentally named him Doctor Disco. However, I then met the good Doctor, and he was quickly renamed Doctor Octogenarian (or, Doc Oc for short.) I'm doing him a favor by placing his age roughly in the 80's, too. Heh. But also very kindly, and explained things to me a LOT better than Doctor Lebanon.

He was puzzled that my symptoms came on in the last month. "That's pretty sudden," he mused. "You have no history of this in the past at all?" I assured him I didn't. He did some more poking and prodding, but was gentler than Doctor Lebanon. He confirmed I had swelling, but was cagey on diagnosing me with polyps.

He showed me a picture of the human sinuses. It goes a little something like this:



See all those large openings? "It's impossible to see inside those things without doing proper investigation. There's no way he looked inside and immediately knew you had polyps. At this juncture, I think polyp surgery is a bit hasty, especially since we were able to get your swelling down in 24 hours."

I paraphrase, because he actually explained it in a LOT more detail, with graphs, charts, and anatomical models, but that's the basic gist. He then sat for a minute thinking, which was really cute actually, just the way he sat and rested his head in his hand (I really have a fondness for old people, I just do. Especially elder ENTs. That are gentle. And sweet. I bet he would have given me a lollipop if I was younger.)

"How's your sense of smell?" he asked after a minute. "Fine, I guess, why?" I replied. He told me he wanted to test it out.

He took a yellow card down with a few "scratch n sniff" spots on it. He scratched one, gently closed my right nostril, and asked me to smell with my left side. "What do you smell...whiskey, grass, leather, or lavender?" I couldn't smell anything at all. Nothing. Just...air. I thought it was a trick question. He had me smell with the other nostril, though, and it was clearly a very strong lavender scent. I repeated this test with a few other scent patches, but the end result was clear: I have no sense of smell in the left side of my nose.

This seemed to alarm him. "I don't get that. You should have something, just a little bit. But there's nothing at all. Hm." He did the cute thinking thing for a while longer, and came to his conclusion. "I am not convinced you have polyps. They usually don't develop in just a month. I want to do a thorough check on you though; do some head X-Rays and also put you under a "twilight" sleep for an endoscopic investigation inside your inner sinuses. I want to see what's causing your blockage. It just sounds...peculiar to me."

Now I was alarmed. This is a man who was probably born during the invention of the cotton gin. Doc Oc has been around the block, and so for my situation to be seen as peculiar to him had me thinking one thing: "Oh God, I have cancer. Cancer of the sinus and nose and its going to go into my brain and I have 2 months to live."

I did not want to share this panic that I had with him, though. Not yet. I agreed to the investigative procedures, grateful that he disagreed with Doctor Lebanon about the allergy shots, and also grateful that he wasn't in such a hurry to hack/chop my sinuses apart. His approach seems more common sense, and tempered. But still. I am now convinced I have nose cancer.

I was given an injection of an anti-inflammatory as a parting gift, and instantly whatever swelling was left in my sinuses disappeared. My arm is a bit sore, but if I complain about that, then I really sound like a Debbie Downer. Stay tuned for part 3, in which Suzanne gets her head examined...literally.