The Smell of Days Gone By

An update on my health:

Yeah, I graduated from the Tom Baker Centre. They don't want to see me anymore. But I still check in with my ENT surgeon once a year to see how things are going. For the longest while, the worst byproduct of my radiation ordeal was my ear. It is so dry in there because it no longer produces its own oils so dirt and all sorts of nastiness just build up in there and my normal body functions do not kick into gear to clear it out like it should. So lo and behold, I had experienced my very first ear infection as a grown adult. Never had that problem as a kid, go figure.

But other than the inconvenience of having to go every so often for him to clean it out (I don't dare take a Q-Tip to the area anymore) everything seemed alright. Until I guess one time he got it especially clean and noticed exposed bone in my ear. EXPOSED BONE! He figured the skin and tissues inside had sloughed off post-radiation and he referred me to a specialist to see what they could do for me. He figured they might graft some skin in there. Honestly, how doctors can work with such little regions of the human body amazes me to no end. Or can you imagine them performing such a procedure on a baby?! Even smaller!

So half a year went by and no call from the specialist. This upset my doc but hey, this is how specialists are in my experience. Luckily for me another specialist had just moved into the city so he sent in a referral with the new doctor as a Plan B.

Well wouldn't you know it but I got a call from the specialist's receptionist less than a week later, and they would have got me in to see him sooner had it not been for my work schedule.

He took a look at it, cleaned it out (sad but I feel like such a slob that they have to clean it all the time) and he sent in a requisition for a CT scan so he could know better just how much excess bone we were dealing with. Notice that he said EXCESS. I didn't think to ask him in the moment but does he mean to tell me that I just have extra bone building up in my ear?!

And to add to my queasiness, he made no mention of grafting skin to patch things up. His first guess at a solution was grinding the bone if it truly bothered me. I don't think grinding was quite the word he used but regardless, it makes me twitch just thinking about it.

By the way, it was uncanny timing but after waiting an eternity for the first specialist he finally called and set me up with an appointment pretty much a month after the first specialist. My surgeon's receptionist suggested I hold onto the appointment in case this new guy couldn't do anything for me. I don't know about you but after meeting up with the new one and hearing about bone grinding I'm keen on seeing the other guy just to see what he says. He kept me waiting this long there is no way he's not going to see me.

Anyway, yeah, CT scan. Even THAT got scheduled lickety-split. That always makes me a little nervous...like it's urgent and there's some sort of dire situation they aren't telling me about.

So I had the CT scan this past Monday. I haven't had a CT scan in years! The past few years of followup have all been MRIs. The drive to the diagnostic imaging centre took 4 times as long as my scan. No lie! The scan was all of 5 minutes. But within those 5 minutes a familiar smell came into the room. I can't tell if it comes from the equipment or what but it was a smell I only ever came across during radiation therapy. That brought up some miserable feelings.

It's not a smell I would like to ever encounter again. In fact I think my breath caught for a moment when I recognized it.

So I'll hear about the results after a week or so they tell me. I hope he comes up with a better solution than inner-ear-bone-grinding. At any rate I still have my back up plan appointment with the original specialist in 2 weeks. It feels kind of weird "shopping" around for more desirable medical treatment.