Thursday, June 13, 2002. Entry #162

"So how's it going?" Dr. Chu chirped as he bounced into the examination room.

I signed inwardly. It's so hard to be mad at Dr. Chu. Even after making me wait for 25 minutes in the examination room.

"Ooh, what's this?" he chirped, opening my file. You never want a doctor to show surprise when looking at your file.

It's the results of the lab tests from my physical last summer, which no one bothered to share with me until now. Seems my cholesterol is high and I have an overweight liver. And, like all my physical ailments, these problems will be miraculously cured by a loss of about 30 pounds of flab.

As joyful as this news was, it was not what I was there for. I explained that it was time to take some affirmative action on my chronic throat clearing.

I don't recall if I've mentioned this before, but for years I've been annoying coworkers and roommates alike with a gruff little cough I seem to emit on a regular basis. It's at it's worst when I'm tired, or sick, or just had some milk, or whenever anyone in hearing range is stressed out and not quite in the mood to cope with my throat croaks (or so it seems).

Six years ago Dr. Chu diagnosed this as asthma. He claimed some varieties of asthma display in this particular manner, and prescribed some inhalers to clear it up.

I thought they worked. According to Lisa... well... not one tiny bit.

Finally, provoked by rising work complaints and my shiny, new medical plan, I decided to confront the issue head on.

I was also more prepared. I had done some actual research.

A search on MedicineNet.com indicated that chronic throat clearing was indicative of reflux laryngitis, which is when acid bubbling up from the tummy into the throat causes irritation of the voice box. Another chronic problem I've been having for years was little acidic bubbles in the back of my throat. These were easily dealt with by a couple Rolaids, and I hadn't thought about it further. Now I find there's a connection! Aha!

Dr. Chu agreed this was a reasonable possibility, and also suggested the possibility of post-nasal drip, which also causes throat irritation. So he has prescribed me some acid reducers, which I will take for the next month. Assuming it is reflux laryngitis, these pills will reduce the acid and allow the throat irritation to heal.

If the throat clearing doesn't get any better, or if it only gets partially better, we'll try nasal spray, to fight the possible drip. Maybe even kick in the asthma medication too. Why not? Drug me to the gills, so long as my coworkers no longer have to hear my cane toad imitations all day long.

One final complaint I brought to him were my (shudder) skin tags.

These lovely little buggers are small 'bubbles' of skin that grow in the warm and wet areas of the body like the groin, neck and armpits. They are totally harmless, and can be cosmetically removed by the administration of a sharp blade or some liquid nitrogen.

I mentioned I was tired of these little globules, and that I had even noticed one on the top of my head.

That surprised him, and he started poking in my hair like a monkey on his lunch break. "What do you know!" he chirped. "There it is! Let me take care of that right now."

Before I could say anything, he zipped out the door and hurried back with a Styrofoam cup of smoky coldness.

"Liquid nitrogen," he chirped happily. "This will freeze the sucker dead, and it'll just fall off by itself in a couple days.

Lovely.

So he carefully dripped it on my head. Damn, but that stuff stings! It's like minus 160 degrees or something, so it left the skin tag on my head a crunchy little ball of pain.

I can make another appointment to have the rest removed if I want, or, as Dr. Chu chirpily suggested to me, I can just get Lisa to chop them all off with a sharp pair of kitchen shears.

Yeah, like that's going to happen.

One Year Ago Today: I was still on hiatus, but in 1970, the Beatles' "Let It Be" album went to #1 stayed there for four weeks.

Mom Rating: 2.5 out of 5. Mom thinks it's good I'm finally getting this treated. She's shocked to hear about the 30 pounds though.

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Take me home, big fella