Long Absence in Generally Speaking...

I’ve forgotten how nice it feels to pour words onto a page. So, a year and some change. Not too much has happened. I discovered a tumor in my face in January. It went something like this.

So, I was drowning in adult things. I needed an oil change, I needed to go in for an annual to get my medicine refilled. Those little things that pile up until they seem insurmountable. So I started making appointments to do these things, becoming a cheerleader in my own head. Yay Vamp, you’re such a big girl! You got a dental cleaning! My, how adult you are! That kind of thing.

So, I went and had a physical, and no big deal. About a week later, I got a sinus infection and went to my ENT. I love my ENT, he took my tonsils out in 1981 and I still see him. Except, he retired at the end of 2015. So I got an appointment with a new ENT at the same practice, Dr. Magne. She did that “feel your glands” thing, and as she finished, I asked her to feel a lump I had found near the opening to my ear. She pressed on it, and said, “Yep, it’s a tumor.”

One thing I have come to love about this doctor is how acutely she can gauge me. As soon as she said it, she had to calm me down. And then I asked a million questions, and went home and looked it all up on the Internet and then I REALLY freaked out. What I had was a parotid gland tumor. And while I wish I hadn’t had it, this doctor made it all ok. She recognized my extreme needle phobia and scheduled me for a needle biopsy under sedation in March. The removal surgery was on July 29, 2016 and I didn’t even end up with a terrible scar or paralysis. It could have been much worse, all things considered. I did faint when she took out the stitches, but I’ve never claimed to be a medical person.

So, now I’m just recovering. It takes a lot longer than expected. I have neuropathy in my left ear, which is exquisite painful tingling numbness. It’s going away, but nerves heal so slowly. I’m at the halfway point on my ear now, when it was the whole thing.